LINES 
LONG 


Henry  B.  Fuller 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES    IN 
VARIOUS   RHYTHMS 

BY 

HENRY  B.  FULLER 


BOSTON    AND   NEW   YORK 

HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN   COMPANY 

reg£  Camferib0e 
1917 


COPYRIGHT,    1917,   BY  HENRY   B.  FULLER 
ALL    RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  February  IQIJ 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

A  FEW  of  the  present  pieces  already  have  been  printed. 
For  their  reappearance  here  I  am  indebted  to  Poetry,  the 
Chicago  Tribune,  and  the  New  Republic. 


CONTENTS 

TOBIAS  HOLT,   BACHELOR  3 

RIGMAROLE  9 

PATIENCE  14 

ARIDITY  21 

VEILS  27 

THE   TWO  APPRENTICES  83 

DELICACY  39 

POSTPONEMENT  47 

POLLY   GREENE  53 

MANNERS  59 

DEATH   OF   AUNT   JULIANA  66 

CHARM  72 

WHISPERINGS  79 

ALONZO   GROUT  86 

VICTORY  92 

INTERLUDE  97 

THE   STATUE  104 

Ivii  ] 


CONTENTS 

THE  "ART  OF  LIFE"  in 

THE   ALIEN  118 

TOWARD    CHILDHOOD  124 

THE   OUTSIDER  130 

GLARE  136 

THE   DAY   OF   DANGER  141 

CHAMELEON  148 

DELIQUESCENCE  153 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 


TOBIAS  HOLT,  BACHELOR 

AT  twenty 

Holt  seemed  like  other  chaps 

In  his  own  set  and  circle: 

He  waltzed  and  redowa'd, 

Was  handy-brisk  at  picnics, 

Took  all  the  girls  on 

Ushered  at  weddings  — 

In  short,  was  generally  popular. 

At  twenty-eight, 

Though  long  regarded  as  a  "catch," 

He  was  still  single; 

Had  ushered  all  his  chums  and  pals 

Into  the  married  state, 

But  stopped  outside  himself. 

Some  said  he  had  no  enterprise,  no  spunk; 

Others  thought  he  could  see  no  individual  girl 

Among  the  crowd,  —  the  forest  hid  the  trees; 

And  others  still  declared 

That  what  he  really  preferred  to  be 

Was  Little  Brother  to  the  Whole  Wide  World. 


This  last  guess  was  nearest  of  the  three; 
Holt  was  simply  —  kind. 
His  little  "life  ideal"  was  just  this: 
To  be  in  pleasant,  comfortable  circumstances  himself 
[3] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

(No  scansion  whatsoever,  there!); 

To  "go"  with  others  similarly  placed; 

To  do  these  others  various  little  favors, 

Kindnesses,  obliging  turns, 

And  to  make  life,  within  such  narrowed  limits, 

A  "nice"  and  friendly  thing. 

No  passion;  no  vicissitudes; 

Good-will  all  round. 

Does  such  a  spirit 

Help  move  the  real  world  on? 

Well,  perhaps  not. 

Now,  as  a  bachelor  in  his  thirties, 

Holt  made  the  rounds : 

Dined  with  married  friends, 

Brought  presents  for  their  children, 

And  in  the  case  of  couples  six  months  wed, 

And  facing  their  first  sag, 

Jumped  in  the  threatening  breach  and  pulled 

them  through. 

He  had  the  run  of  several  pleasant  homes, 
And  Mrs.  C.  H.  Mack, 
Whom  he  had  often  taken 
To  parties  and  on  buggy-rides, 
Always  invited  him  to  dinner 
On  Thanksgiving  Day. 

As  he  neared  fifty, 
The  various  welcomes 
Grew  more  sedate; 

[4  ] 


TOBIAS  HOLT,  BACHELOR 

Some,  even  cool. 

Folks  had  their  own  concerns,  perhaps; 

And  then,  again, 

His  youthful  charm  —  this  is  just  possible  — 

Had  become  impaired. 

And  one  November 

The  invitation  for  Thanksgiving 

Did  not  come. 

Panic!  —  no  less. 

But  it  turned  out 

Alicia  Mack  had  not  forgotten: 

Sickness  in  the  house. 

Heaven  be  blessed !  — 

Henceforward  a  new  lease  of  life, 

With  doubled  works  of  friendliness  and  zeal, 

And  yet  —  what  might  the  future  bring  from 

others? 

So,  a  high  resolve  to  gird  him, 
To  hold  the  slipping  ground, 
And  last  through  to  the  end. 

Daily  Holt  became 
More  strenuous,  more  assiduous: 
The  sliding  clutch  must  stick. 
More  calls,  more  flowers,  more  loans  of  books, 
More  friendly  offices, 
More  theater-parties  for  married  pairs, 
More  jokes  and  funny  stories 
Laboriously  rehearsed  and  sprung. 
He  learned  the  two-step : 
f  5  1 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Young  girls  would  dance  with  him 
When  younger  partners  failed, 
And,  if  the  daughters  of  his  early  friends, 
Would  call  him  "Uncle  Toby." 
And  gay  young  dogs, 
Who  'd  not  yet  learned  the  latest  step, 
But  meant  to, 

Would  snicker  on  the  outskirts: 
Tail-Holt,  they'd  say,  was  better  Holt  than 
none! 

He  kept  the  run  of  birthdays, 

And  of  anniversaries 

Husbands  themselves  forgot. 

And  one  December, 

When  fate  had  been  adverse, 

He  set  aside  all  notion 

Of  a  new  business-suit 

And  put  the  money  saved 

Into  a  round  of  presents. 

"Not  much,"  people  might  say, 

On  opening  their  parcels; 

"But,  anyway,  he's  not  forgotten  us 

Completely."   Thus  he'd  arrange 

A  welcome,  not  too  chill, 

For  one  year  more. 

Holt,  at  sixty-five, 

Was  finding  life  still  busy 

But  rather  bleak; 

[6] 


TOBIAS  HOLT,  BACHELOR 

And  one  day  he  lay  down  in  bed, 

A  bachelor  in  a  boarding-house, 

To  think  about  it. 

Next  day  the  doctor  came.  .  .  . 

Well,  now, 

Shall  I  be  brusque,  or  sentimental? 

Communicative,  or  quite  mute, 

Leaving  it  all  to  you? 

Did  he  get  well,  or  die? 

Did  people  rally,  or  remain  away? 

Dear  reader,  you  shall  have  it  as  you  choose. 

Did  fellows  at  the  clubs  say,  "H'm!" 

And  keep  their  chairs? 

Did  a  wide  circle  read  about  his  death 

Only  to  say,  "Well!  well!"; 

And  did  the  office  satisfy  itself 

With  a  ten-dollar  wreath? 

Or  did  a  wave  of  general  kindliness  — 

Equivalent  for  all  the  little  waves 

Himself  had  set  in  motion  — 

Gather  impetus 

And  waft  him  out 

On  the  Great  Sea? 

Did  Alicia  Mack, 

Or  others  of  that  early  coterie, 

Come  to  his  doleful  room 

With  sympathy  and  flowers 

(And  even,  mayhap, 

[7] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

A  favorite  grandchild 
To  clamber  on  his  bed), 
Showing  a  friendly  tear  in  worldly  eyes? 
Did  far-back  chums  sit  down  beside  his  pillow, 
Sucking  their  cane-heads,  saying: 
"Cheer  up,  old  chap;  you're  coming  through 
all  right!"? 

Yes,  perhaps  he  did 

Come  through  all  right  — 

With  much  or  little  sympathy  — 

To  take  up,  with  what  zest  he  could, 

The  frantic  role 

Of  buying  favors  from  a  cooling  world. 

Spend  as  you  will, 

It 's  sad  to  be  old,  and  alone. 

(Fudge!  that's  the  very  thing  ', 

I  tried  hard  not  to  say!) 


RIGMAROLE 

THE  word's  undignified,  I  know, 

And  does  n't  even  say  quite  what  I  mean. 

My  meaning  is  approximately  this: 

The  turning  back  of  things 

On  their  own  selves, 

To  take  another  start. 

"Eternal  recurrence"  might  be  made  to  do, 

Save  for  the  rumbling,  stumbling  r's. 

"Everlasting  return,"  though  anapaestic, 

Here  seems  cacophonous; 

And  even  "Endless  chain"  will  scarcely  serve. 

Well,  John  M.  Hart  was  a  professional  man, 
Or  meant  to  be, 

And  married  young  —  at  twenty-four 
(A  longish  chance,  say  I). 
Heaven  blessed  him  —  if  you  like: 
At  thirty 

He  had  a  little  family  of  three. 
Think  what  that  means :  — 
'Mongst  many  other  things, 
Wakeful  nights, 
Perambulators  on  the  porch, 
Little  tempers,  unfolding  minds, 
Bills 

(That  deadly  word  shall  stand  all  by  itself), 
[9] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

And  slavery  (qualified)  for  mother 

And  father  too. 

Through  years, 

No  leisure,  no  outings; 

Few  books  and  pleasures; 

Every  spare  cent  put  in  the  Children's  Pool. 

Hum! 

When  the  elder  boy  was  ready  for  high  school, 
And  the  little  girl  well  through  kindergarten, 
Freedom  (qualified)  seemed  almost  won: 
Husband  and  wife  could  take  an  evening  off, 
Or  spare  the  change  for  an  occasional  book. 
And  then  —  Hart  found  himself  a  widower. 
(A  bit  too  much  like  blank  verse,  hereabouts.) 
After  a  lonely,  perplexed  year  or  so, 
Another  face  was  fair,  and  he  again  complete. 
(Are  Alexandrines  better?  No.) 

Thus,  in  due  course,  another  brood. 

Then,  wakeful  nights, 

Perambulators  on  the  porch, 

More  little  tempers, 

More  unfolding  minds, 

Bills  .  .  . 

But  why  repeat? 

Once  again,  clamps  for  the  purse, 

Crimps  for  the  mind, 

Shrinkage  in  life's  fair  opportunities. 

He  found  himself 

[  10] 


RIGMAROLE 

Back  in  the  same  old  school, 

But  with  a  different  seatmate; 

And  though  so  eager  and  so  able 

To  enter  the  next  grade, 

Turning  the  pages  back  and  "taking  a  review." 

And  then,  in  middle  life, 

Fate  having  dealt  a  second  blow, 

He  wedded  once  again. 

His  older  children  setting  up  or  settling  down, 

His  younger  past  the  nursery  and  off  to  school, 

Another  of  Eve's  daughters  rose  to  view, 

And  her  face,  too,  was  fair. 

Whence  a  single  child, 

The  flower  of  his  old  age : 

A  novel  episode  for  his  young  wife, 

A  thrice-told  tale  for  him. 

One  child  may  work  the  tyranny  of  six. 

Hence,  wakeful  nights, 

Perambulator  for  the  porch 

(Or,  rather,  vestibule;  it  was  a  flathouse,  now); 

One  more  little  temper, 

One  more  unfolding  mind, 

Bills  .  .  . 

Yes,  the  regular  rigmarole. 

Shades  of  the  prison-house  began  to  close 

Upon  the  aging  man; 

And  he  who  longed  for  a  post-graduate  course 

Found  himself  set  back 

i  in 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

To  matrimony's  earlier  pages  — 

Life's  primary  pupil  still. 

For  others  wider  scope  and  higher  aims; 

For  him,  't  would  seem, 

A  meager  office  and  a  humdrum  home. 

One  evening, 

After  his  eldest  son  and  that  son's  wife 

Had  wheeled  their  first-born  to  the  door 

In  his  perambulator, 

Hart,  half -dazed,  bestowed  a  grand-dad's  blessing; 

Then,  in  his  "library"  (it  was  n't  much), 

He  mused,  alone: 

"Lord,  what  is  MAN?" 

(Should  he  have  "caps"  or  agate  lower  case?) 
"  Is  he  protagonist  or  supernumerary? 
Hero  or  martyr? 
Nincompoop  or  sage? 
Why  is  he  here? 
Where  from? 

What  for  —  what  purpose  meant  to  serve? 
And  what  the  object  of  this  Squirrel-cage  — 
This  endless  Merry-go-round  of  doubtful  joy? 
What  issue  for  this  mortal  Shoot-the-shoots? 
Where  does  it  all  get  us? 
How  do  we  link  up 
With  Seen  and  Unseen? 
What  gain,  through  all  this  stir  and  stew, 
For  me  —  or  for  Another? 
[  12] 


RIGMAROLE 

Why  must  we  poor  mortals  .  .  .  ?  " 

He  dozed. 

And  if  the  answer  came  to  him  in  sleep 

It  left  him  ere  he  woke :  — 

The  world's  still  dark. 


PATIENCE 

SING,  muse!  — 

But  no;  that  opening's  stale. 

1*11  sing,  myself: 

I'll  chant  Malvina  Shedd, 

Our  first  highpriestess  of  gentility. 

I've  called  this  odelet  "Patience." 

Might  as  well  call  it  "Faith  and  Patience"; 

Or  better  still, 

"Faith,  Hope,  and  Patience"  - 

That  blessed,  potent  triad 

Which  moves  the  mountain  round. 

Don't  sniff  if  I  've  implied 

Malvina  was  "genteel"; 

For  this  queer  word 

Had  standing  in  the  'sixties, 

That  epoch  when  our  heroine 

Planted  her  standard  in  the  Middle  West 

And  cried,  "Ye  choice  ones,  gather  round!" 

But  few  there  were  to  answer. 
Almost  alone,  Malvina, 
A  bride  just  from  the  East, 
Stood  in  the  void  among  the  ribald  many, 
[  14] 


PATIENCE 

A  "remnant"  of  just  one, 
Playing  her  little  game  of  Solitaire. 

The  town  itself, 

Purest  ramshackle, 

Sprawled  in  a  morass, 

Star-gazing  at  the  future; 

And  Horace  W.  Shedd, 

Then  in  hides  and  tallow, 

Gazed  with  the  rest. 

He  saw  things  big,  and  all  he  saw  came  true. 

Yet  even  he  could  think  his  wife 

A  futile  sibyl. 

Later,  he  owned  his  error. 

Malvina  first  rose  full-orbed  on  the  town 
In  'sixty-five,  at  the  Sanitary  Fair. 
Her  booth,  here,  was  the  best  of  all. 
Early  she  took  the  lead  and  never  lost  it: 
Next  season,  no  sewing-class  for  freedmen 
More  sought  than  hers,  — 
No  front  steps, 

In  the  long  summer  twilights  by  the  lake, 
More  peopled. 

The  winter  following, 
She  formed  a  dancing  class  — 
A  thing  so  choice  that  few  could  qualify. 
She  named  it  "Entre  Nous,"  or  "Nonpareil,' 
Or  something  of  the  sort, 
[  15  ] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

And  made  kid  gloves  and  swallow-tails 
De  rigueur. 

But  soon  she  fled  town  mud  for  rural  joys. 

In  a  new  suburb — sort  o*  —  on  the  prairie's  edge, 

She  reared  a  "villa,"  so  to  speak, 

Within  a  "shrubbery ";- 

"lona  Lodge"  she  called  it; 

And  if  you  owned  a  clarence 

You  might  drive  out  there  Sunday  afternoon 

And  call. 

She  next  devised 

A  Sunday  afternoon  in  town  — 

Oh,  wickedness! 

Some  few  bold  spirits 

Braved  public  censure  to  attend. 

They  told  of  cakes  and  ices 

Passed  by  a  man  in  livery, 

The  first  such  creature  spied 

Within  the  corporate  limits. 

Where  had  she  got  him? 

Doubtless  some  foreigner  —  Swiss,  maybe. 

"A  flunky!"  said  the  reading  public;  "faugh!" 

And  while  the  general  throng 
Still  went  to  Lotta  or  to  "Uncle  Tom," 
Madam  put  on  her  ermine  cape 
And  heard  Ristori  from  a  box. 
The  dizzied  gallery  gaped;  but  the  parquet 
[  16  ] 


PATIENCE 

Looked  and  approved  and  took  our  friend 
For  social  leader,  now,  past  all  dispute. 

On  New  Year's  day  our  heroine 
Kept  open  house. 

Tom  came,  and  Dick,  and  Harry  — 
For  now  she  had  a  following  indeed. 
Tom  was  all  right,  and  Dick  would  do; 
But  Harry! 

He  was  so  numerous  and  objectionable! 
And  when  he  grew  too  many 
And  the  press  complained 
That  New  Year  wine  started 
A  multitude  of  youths 
Down  to  the  drunkard's  grave, 
Malvina  cut  things  short. 
She  was  the  first 

To  hang  a  ribboned  wicker-basket  by  the  front 
door  bell 

And  let  men  drop  their  cards. 
Other  ladies  followed: 
For  January  first 

Exclusive  and  retired  recueillement 
Became  the  mode. 

The  dancing  class  had  long  been  dropped: 
Malvina  gave  a  "german" 
In  her  own  new  house  (or  mansion), 
With  favors. 

Dozens  of  young  clerks  danced  till  three; 
[  17] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Then  at  their  desks  by  eight. 

I  don't  know  how  they  did  it,  but  they  did. 

Black  headlines,  the  next  morning, 

Told  much  about  the  fete, 

But  did  not  tell  us  that. 

Nor  did  they  say 

That  in  the  wee  sma'  hours 

Malvina  lit  a  cigarette  —  the  first. 

Next  coup : 

After  all  this,  Malvina  went  abroad 

To  meet  the  old-world  grandeurs  face  to  face. 

Presently  word  came  back 

That  told  of  her  at  court  — 

London,  of  course;  and  pretty  soon 

The  Elite  Herald 

(This  sheet  ran  weekly  for  almost  a  year) 

Pictured  her  in  a  court-train 

And  ostrich-feathers. 

Enough:  that  put  her  foot  upon  our  necks; 

She  ruled  us  ever  after. 

Thence  her  first  right 

To  every  passing  prince  — 

A  right  she  had  some  time  enjoyed 

With  passing  operatic  stars, 

Who  sang  in  her  salon. 

(Salon,  yes;  not  drawing-room; 

Parlor,  still  less.) 

F  18  1 


PATIENCE 

That  was  the  trouble  with  the  stars: 

Passing;  errant,  not  fixed. 

Brief  seasons  at  this  theater  or  that; 

Troupes  from  other  towns, 

Thrown  at  us  for  a  fortnight; 

But  there  still  lacked 

An  opera  of  our  own, 

With  settled  places 

For  our  leaders  and  our  queens. 

But  let  that  pass. 

The  years  went  on. 

Malvina,  with  a  great  gray  pompadour, 

Took  on  a  hyphen;  't  was  the  first  in  town. 

Malvina  Woode-Shedd  —  thus  she  signed  the  notes 

That  brought  the  season's  debutantes 

To  pour  at  teas. 

Think  ye,  young  buds, 

That  teas,  and  comings-out,  and  such-like  things 

Have  always  been  in  this  our  burg? 

You  do?  Just  guess  again. 

After  a  while  a  great  big  yellow  hall 
Put  a  new  row  of  boxes  at  the  back : 
Our  own,  own  op'ra  in  full  bloom  at  last! 
Malvina,  old  but  strong, 
Seized  on  the  middle  box, 
As  by  a  right  none  could  gainsay, 
And  there  she  sat: 

A  Faith  who  had  endured  through  all; 
f  19  1 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

A  Prophetess  whose  fondest  words 
Were  now  come  true. 

Sound,  music!  trumpets,  blare! 

Ring  thro'  the  vast  hall's  blaze! 

In  one  admiring  gaze 
Let  city's  brave  and  fair 
At  great  Malvina  stare ! 

Loq.  —  "View,  with  due  amaze, 

Our  tall  tiara's  rays, 
The  gold-spun  robe  we  wear!" 

Such  scene  was,  from  the  start, 
Before  her  vatic  eyes. 

Steadfastness  was  the  key; 
Well  has  she  played  her  part: 
Band,  chorus,  public,  rise,  — 

Greet  her  with  three  times  three! 

A  sonnet  (narrow  width)  — 

As  you  perceive. 

Would  it  were  wider! 

For, 

A  gallant,  persevering  spirit, 

In  whatsoever  field, 

Earns  all  the  praise 

This  grudging  world  can  give. 


ARIDITY 

THE  world  is  all  before  us,  where  to  choose: 

Spoon  River  or  Bird  Center, 

Or  something  in  between  — 

Nay,  that's  not  so; 

Youth  does  not  choose;  age  cannot. 

Often  the  young 

Accept  the  world-scheme  far  too  readily; 

The  older  man,  if  he  objects, 

Objects  too  late;  he's  lived  to  find 

The  world  now  woven  for  him. 

Enmeshed,  he  can  but  be 

What  he  has  come  to  be  — 

As  here,  as  here; 

Or,  indeed, 

As  anywhere. 

Well,  to  begin  again: 
The  happy  man  is  he 
Who  lives  by  something 
And  for  that  something  dies. 
Number  One  lives,  let  us  say, 
By  wife  and  child, 
And  dies  for  them 

Upon  the  threshold  of  the  blazing  home. 
Number  Two  lives  by  his  college 
And  dies  for  it  upon  the  gridiron 
[21  ] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Amid  the  shouts  of  pleasured  thousands. 

Number  Three,  indulging  an  odd  passion, 

Lives  by  hoary,  violent  Rome, 

And  dies  there,  or  thereafter, 

Of  fever,  or  malaria 

(I  sweep  aside  all  newer  thought 

On  the  mosquito), 

Or  sheer  homesickness;  — 

O  Rome,  so  fair,  so  old,  so  far  away! 

Number  Four  — 

Well,  Number  Four  was  Benjamin  C.  Hill, 

And  he  lived  by  and  died  for 

The  Merchants'  National  Tax-Title  &  Trust  Co. 

Hill  made  his  debut 

By  helping  to  take  orders,  'cross  a  counter, 

For  abstracts  of  title:  an  uncle  found  the  job. 

The  docile  boy,  mouldable  to  anything, 

Slid  into  the  place  without  a  question. 

Within  a  fortnight  he  was  quite  at  home; 

And  soon  he  saw,  beyond  mistake, 

His  life-road  open. 

Thence  to  law-school  at  night; 

Then,  laureled, 

Back  for  the  remainder  of  his  days 

To  snuggle  up  against  the  nourishing  breast 

Of  the  Trust  Company. 

Five  decades  followed,  years 
Of  instruments,  continuations, 


ARIDITY 

Quit-claims,  releases,  what  you  will. 

Kinks,  kinks,  kinks  — 

Sometimes  he  put  them  in, 

Sometimes  he  took  them  out; 

But  either,  and  ever, 

With  relish  and  enjoyment. 

He  never  rose  to  be  the  head  of  all, 

Yet  in  his  own  department 

He  was  perfect,  prized,  well-paid. 

He  frilled  the  leaves  of  abstracts  all  day  long; 
Then  took  them  home  at  night 
And  read  them  in  his  den. 
Like  Descartes,  he  could  say: 
"I  think;  therefore  I  am." 
A  new  Spinoza,  he  was  drunk 
Not  with  God,  but  with  God's  footstool. 
Like  Herbert  Spencer,  he  could  clip  close 
ThJ  Unknowable  — 
(Unknowable  to  us,  but  plain  to  him). 
He  knew  the  city's  spread 
From  Rogers  Park  to  Hegewisch, 
And  out  past  Austin : 
Subdivision  by  subdivision, 
From  Original  Town 
To  last  Addition. 
A  Simeon  Schopenhauer, 
He  looked  down  from  his  lonely  column 
And  viewed  the  world, 
Not  as  Wille  und  Vorstellung, 
\  23  1 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

But  as  sheer  Real  Estate. 

And  he  was  always  making  points  — 

An  Indian  fakir  on  his  bed  of  spikes. 

Man  (Istly)  delighted  him  not  (Shakespeare) : 

He  saw  the  Bete  Humaine 

(O  Zola !   O  thy  chanting  choirs !) 

Merely  as  Grantor  and  Grantee; 

Nor  (2ndly)  a  dark  eye  in  woman  (Byron) : 

He  married  early  a  pale-pupiled  blonde, 

And  there  it  ended; 

Nor  (3rdly)  childhood's  happy  laughter  (Anybody), 

At  home  he  was  only 

The  passive  background. 

His  wife  had  clubs  and  causes, 

And  made  as  if  they  satisfied  her. 

His  adopted  son  —  or  hers  — 

Went  off  to  college,  much  to  Hill's  relief. 

Thus  domesticity  slid  by  the  board; 

And  so  did  civics,  art,  church,  charity, 

And  all  the  rest. 

Once  he  was  asked  to  go 

Before  the  Tax  Commission 

And  aid  reform. 

But  no;  that  interest,  though  allied, 

Was  not  his,  quite: 

He  kept  his  special  corner. 

This  corner  was  retired 
From  natural  daylight 

[24  ] 


ARIDITY 

And  from  outside  air, 

And  he  lived  there  for  years, 

And  years : 

The  Company  was  always  going  to  build  — 

And  never  did. 

When  he  was  nearing  fifty 

Quarters  such  as  these 

Began  to  tell: 

His  boy,  returning  home, 

Found  him  more  sapless, 

More  jejune,  than  ever; 

He  was  drying  up. 

They  pushed  him  toward  the  links. 

He  sat  upon  the  club-house  porch 

And  viewed  the  landscape  o'er: 

A  spread-out  checker-board  of  quarter-sections 

Beneath  a  sky 

"Clear"  sometimes,  sometimes  "clouded." 

And  here  he  amorously  eyed 

His  pocketful  of  memos.  — 

Such  was  his  exercise. 

The  years  went  on  — 
Ten,  twelve,  fifteen. 
He  was  but  a  wraith, 
A  disembodied  intellect. 
He  never  made  complaint, 
Even  on  his  poorest  days; 
No  protest  at  the  start, 
[  25  ] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

No  protest  now. 

For  him,  one  life, 

And  he  was  leading  it. 

He  never  longed  for  alma  mater; 

He  never  whined  for  Rome. 

And  then,  at  sixty-six,  the  end. 

No  hope  for  a  continuation: 

He  quit-claimed  life; 

And  Death,  the  Great  Conveyancer, 

Carried  him  away. 

Perhaps  't  was  pernicious  anaemia; 

Perhaps,  arterial  sclerosis; 

Perhaps  —  Why  should  we  specify? 

Heigh-ho! 

Eight  ascetic  verbalists, 

Drawn  from  the  office,  — 

Eight  grammarians 

(A  reference,  properly  obscure, 

To  Browning),  — 

Bore  him  to  the  grave. 

Well,  well; 

Here  ends  his  abstract  and  brief  chronicle, 

Of  course  I  cannot  speak  for  you; 

But,  as  for  me 

(Despite  the  consolations  of  philosophy 

Attempted  near  the  start), 

It  makes  me  rather  sad. 


VEILS 

Do  shadows  ever  lift  completely? 
Why,  yes  —  one  might  suppose  so. 
But  this  particular  shadow;  let  us  see. 

I  '11  make  no  bid  for  sympathy 

On  behalf  of  the  poor  girl 

By  saying  she  was  lovely  — 

She  was  not;  she  had  the  average  looks; 

Or  that  she  was  sweet  — 

For  she  was  not;  she  had  the  average  disposition; 

Or  that  she  was  poor  —  for  she  was  not : 

On  the  contrary,  she  (or  her  father)  was  rich  — 

Flagrantly  so.   That  made  the  trouble, 

In  a  way. 

He  invented,  owned,  dispensed 
A  proprietary  medicine. 
Its  title  and  its  function 
Were  both  absurd  and  just  a  bit  repellent. 
Wide  and  shrewd  publicity  had  made  the  name 
A  household  word  throughout  the  land  — 
A  by-word  too : 

The  baser  press,  the  cheaper  clubs, 
Made  jokes  and  gibes  about  it. 
Those  of  the  former  were  not  copied  far; 
Those  of  the  latter  passed  by  word  of  mouth, 
f  27  1 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Yet  a  result  was  reached: 
Effluvium. 

From  fifteen  on  to  twenty-three  — 

Years  sensitive  — 

Our  heroine  caught  distasteful  whiffs. 

High  school  was  cruel, 

College  most  unkind; 

Society,  in  certain  circles,  nudged  and  snickered. 

Only  marriage,  with  change  of  name, 

Seemed  to  hold  out  promise  of  relief. 

Her  parent,  sturdy  man, 

Could  see  no  reason  for  this  pother. 

What  did  the  silly  people  mean?  — 

Business  was  business: 

He  had  gone  ahead 

On  principles  quite  proper  and  approved. 

No  thought  humanitarian  or  philanthropic 

Tainted  or  prejudiced  the  enterprise. 

His  stuff  was  made  to  sell  — 

Like  blankets,  bonds  or  anything; 

The  buyer  must  beware. 

Indeed  a  closer  study  of  his  formula 

Than  law  exacted 

Would  have  shown, 

Through  the  employment  of  ingredients 

Cheap  and  deleterious, 

A  competence  not  to  be  found  everywhere. 

Consider,  too,  his  plant, 

f  28  1 


VEILS 

Increasing  in  spread  and  bulk  with  every  year; 

Count  up  his  office  force, 

Great  and  growing  constantly; 

Think,  too,  of  his  big  selling-staff  — 

Its  wide  and  ever-widening  endeavors. 

It  was  a  business,  like  any  other  — 

Save  that,  where  other  brought  m  paltry  thousands, 

This  brought  in  millions. 

His  daughter's  foreground  was  most  fan*  to  view, 

For  she  had  everything  these  millions  could  buy; 

But  in  the  background  spread  that  horrible  decor 

Which  blighted  her  young  life. 

How  many  veils,  skillfully  lowered, 

Would  be  required  to  shut  it  from  the  sight, 

Eradicate  it  from  the  general  memory? 

She  married:  a  gauzy  veil,  the  first, 

Descended  and  took  away 

Her  over-famous  name. 

Her  husband  was  too  sensible,  ambitious,  and  robust 

To  be  fastidious; 

He  had  means  himself, 

And  used  his  new  connection  to  make  them  greater. 

The  awful  name  still  stared 

From  billboards  and  electric  signs, 

But  was  no  longer  hers. 

Next  went  the  name  itself:  a  great,  grasping  trust 
Dropped  down  a  second  veil 
[29] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Between  Madama  and  the  Horror: 

Her  father's  business  became 

But  one  in  a  mushed  dozen. 

As  a  separate  entity  it  vanished; 

Its  memory  faded  slowly, 

Like  an  evil  smell. 

Shortly  her  husband  died 

And  left  her  more  than  rich. 

Next,  her  father,  his  occupation  and  identity 

Gone  from  him,  passed  on  too,     ( 

And  all  the  millions,  various  and  several, 

Were  hers  alone.   She  went  abroad. 

America  might  still  remember, 

But  Europe  did  not  even  know. 

The  second  son  of  an  impoverished  earl 

Presently  dropped  another  veil,  the  third. 

Her  atmosphere  was  now 

The  soft,  dense  air  of  Devon. 

That  innocent  English  country-side, 

Even  London's  self,  was  guiltless  of  offense: 

No  clouded  hoardings  tortured  her  by  day; 

No  pillared  fires  affronted  her  by  night. 

She  had  escaped  at  last 

The  smarting  stigma  of  her  girlhood  days. 

The  elder  brother  died  in  undue  course; 
The  father,  too,  in  due  course  followed. 
A  countess,  please  you,  ere  five  years. 
[  30  1 


VEILS 

Places  in  town  and  country; 

Well  regarded  by  the  great  and  high; x 

Mother  of  Lord  Dashton  and  the  Honourable  Guy; 

All  going  like  a  charm;  and  then  .  .  . 

Have  you  been  waiting  for  the  words,  "and  then"? 

I  hope  not.   If  you  have, 

Learn,  ignoble  reader,  I  shall  not  go  so  far 

As  you  expect. 

Would  you  have  me  say 

The  Trust  invaded  Britain, 

Again  tormenting  Lady  Blankleigh's  eyes? 

Should  I  tell  how  girlhood  friends, 

Under  the  stress  of  social  competition, 

Dropped  searing  words  of  secret  ancient  history? 

Or  would  you  prod  me  up  till  I  record 

How  some  society  journal,  flippant  and  malignant, 

Harped  on  the  hideous  theme 

And  drove  the  poor  soul  frantic? 

Well,  I  tell  you  plainly, 

It  simply  shall  not  be! 

What  had  she  done  amiss? 

Why  should  we  persecute  her? 

Why  irritate  her  husband,  mortify  her  sons? 

You're  ungenerous.    Varna,  I 

Behind  its  triple  veil, 

In  the  shimmering,  silvery,  shadowy  distance, 
Coils  that  odious  beast,  the  Business, 
Within  his  stalactitic  cave, 

mi. 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Hiccoughing  dollars  which  combine  in  guineas; 

And  in  the  foreground's  golden  glare 

Our  Lady  Bountiful 

Plays  with  high  spirit  a  showy,  dazzling  part, 

And  does  it  well. 

The  Income  Tax  on  new-world  fortunes 

Steals  up  at  intervals  upon  the  fecund  beast, 

To  spring  and  seize; 

The  Expatriate  too 

Is  now  and  then  reproached. 

But  let  her  live  where  home  and  duty  call, 

And  let  her,  free  from  any  shadow 

(Some,  after  all,  are  best  unlifted  and  unlighted), 

Enjoy  her  present  glory  free  from  past  chagrin. 


THE  TWO  APPRENTICES 

YES,  they  once  worked  side  by  side 

In  the  same  art-school. 

They  went  in,  close  together, 

At  the  small  end  of  the  horn; 

And  when  they  came  out  at  the  big, 

They  were  far  apart  indeed. 

Queer,  queer;  but  you  have  only  to  listen. 

"Listen,"  of  course,  means,  "read." 

Both  began  with  the  cubes  and  cones. 

Next,  charcoal  heads  of  What  's-his-Name, 

That  Greek  god  with  the  broad  nose 

And  other  easy  "planes." 

Then  plums,  bandannas  and  terra-cotta  vases, 

All  in  oil. 

Then  the  frizzle-haired  Cuban  in  chaps  and  serape. 

Lastly  they  went  to  Paris  and  splashed  about 

In  that  big  tank  of  gamboge  and  vermilion. 

"A"  was  a  scream  from  the  start. 
He  had  personality  and  wielded  it. 
He  got  mentions  and  medals  beyond  count. 
He  sent  back  things  to  local  exhibitions  — 
Loud,  frantic,  thumping  mythologies  for  ceilings, 
And  such-like. 

The  world's  fairs  nabbed  him  before  he  was  thirty, 
[33] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

And  put  acres  of  space  at  his  disposal. 
Everybody  said  he  had  brio  and  "punch." 
The  sober  few  might  find  him  exotic,  flagrant  — 
Even  not  quite  decent  .  .  . 
But,  anyway,  he  had  a  vogue, 
And  a  vast  one. 

And  "B"? 

He  buzzed  along,  and  nobody  noticed. 

He  did  "illustrations":  — 

Folklore  and  fairy  tales  for  the  youngsters; 

Birds,  flowers,  babies,  friendly  beasts; 

His  drawings,  reduced  to  the  width  of  your  palm, 

or  less, 
Were  printed  in  "readers." 

When  the  two  met  back  home, 
Some  few  years  later, 
"A"  quizzed  "B." 
For  when  "A"  stooped  to  birds, 
They  were  not  hens  and  robins; 
They  were  crested  swans  and  heraldic  eagles. 
His  flowers  were  not  hollyhocks  and  pinks; 
No,  they  were  amaranths  and  asphodels. 
His  babies  did  not  sprawl  on  any  nursery  floor; 
They  were  cherubs  with  protuberant  foreheads 
And  allegorical  intentions. 
His  beasts  were  not  those  of  the  barnyard 
But  of  the  apocalypse : 
Griffins,  dragons,  unicorns,  chimeras 
f  34  1 


THE  TWO  APPRENTICES 

Swept  along  on  a  zoological  whirlwind. 

"So  decorative!"  said  the  starers  in  the  courts  of 

horror. 
And  "B"  went  on  making  primers  for  the  young 

starers  at  the  alphabet. 

"B"  prosaically  married  a  sweet  young  creature 

Just  as  "A"  ran  off  with  a  fellow-artist's  wife. 

The  scandal  helped  —  for  a  while. 

"He  is  a  genius,"  said  the  world's  fairs: 

"We  must  have  him,  all  the  same." 

So  our  rake  progressed  to  matters  bigger  still, 

And  drew  down  bigger  pay. 

He  blew  his  bubble, 
Huge,  iridescent. 
Then  his  hand  began  to  tremble, 
And  the  glittering,  distended  globule  to  sway. 
Rivals  pressed; 

But  he  would  not  do  smaller  things  for  smaller  pay. 
Then  the  fairs  came  to  a  stop, 
And  he  was  on  the  edge. 
Then  he  began  to  topple. 

Perhaps  he  was  not  fit  either  for  prosperity  or  adver 
sity. 

[Moral  reflection:  how  few  of  us, 
Alas!  are.] 

A  row  of  stars,  just  here, 
Would  mark  the  flight  of  time; 
[  35  1 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

But  I  will  simply  say:  Years  passed. 

"B"  pegged  away  at  his  poultry, 

And  his  posies, 

And  his  dogs  and  cats, 

And  his  kiddies. 

He  now  owned  a  country-place, 

And  found  all  his  models  on  the  spot 

(Even  the  children  —  till  they  grew  too  old); 

And  he  had  a  car 

To  take  his  drawings  into  town 

And  place  them  before  an  attentive  publisher, 

And  he  added  acres  to  acres, 

And  sent  his  boys  to  college, 

And  Rosy  and  Betty  to  that  nice  school 

In  Massachusetts. 

And  his  wife,  who  was  "dressy," 

Dressed  —  expensively. 

And  his  boys,  who  were  "sporty," 

Sported  —  expensively. 

And  his  girls,  who  were  "refined," 

Refined  daily. 

It  cost;  oh,  how  it  cost! 

But  the  cruse  — 

Or  shall  I  say,  the  paint-tube?  — 

Never  ran  dry: 

The  hens,  the  hollyhocks, 

The  lammies  and  the  darling  babes 

(These  last,  in  retrospect) 

Paid  for  it  all. 


36 


THE  TWO  APPRENTICES 

And  once,  at  twilight's  fall 

(The  tremolo  is  needed  here), 

A  wanderer, 

Who  might  have  been  in  tattered  velveteen 

And  worn  a  straggling  Vandyke  beard, 

Paused  at  the  lodge 

With  hollow,  hungry  eyes 

(It  was  the  wanderer,  not  the  lodge,  that  had 

them)  — 

Oh,  shucks!   I've  thrown  myself  quite  off  the  track: 
I  '11  pull  another  stop  and  start  afresh. 
Well,  then,  what  I'd  say  is  this: 
A  limp,  bedraggled  eagle,  who  had  once 
Full-faced  the  sun  and  furied  in  its  glare, 
Dropped  in  the  dusky  farmyard; 
And  it  was,  or  might  have  been  — 
Oh,  you  know  who. 
And  you  know  too 
That  dash  and  flash,  in  the  long  run, 
Are  nought; 
That  allegory  withers; 
That  chic  and  brio  soon  pinch  out, 
And  gorgeous  "decorative  schemes" 
Fade  as  the  grass. 
But- 

Children  will  always  come, 
And  they  must  learn  their  letters; 
And  they  must  hear,  in  endless  line, 
The  old-time  tales, 
And  see  their  dusky  visionings 
[37] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT  , 

Made  vivider  upon  the  painted  page. 

Birdies  and  flowers  will  always  have  a  vogue; 

Babies  and  household  pets  will  never  end  their  reign, 

Pile  up  your  palaces, 

And  cover  them  with  sprawling  splendors, 

Flaunted  through  myth  and  symbol: 

The  humbler  artist 

Has  but  to  marshal 

With  lifted  brush 

His  chicks  and  chickadees 

And  lead  the  smiling  charge 

That  strikes  those  proud  walls  down. 


DELICACY 

COME,  get  into  my  car 

(I  never  had  one,  and  I  never  shall 

Have  one;  but  luxury  is  reached  with  ease 

Here  on  white  paper). 

James,  speed  us  toward  the  north. 

There  I  will  spread  before  you 

A  country-side  composed  exclusively 

Of  gentlemen's  estates: 

Chateaux  and  manor-houses  and  baronial  halls  - 

Elizabethan,    Louis    Quinze,  Beaux -Arts,   or 

What-you-will, 
With  sunken  gardens, 
Pleached  walks  and  pleasances, 
Well-tamed  ravines 

And  cultivated  bluffs  from  whose  sandy  rims 
One  sees  a  great  blue  water. 
Nor  must  I  forget  some  minor  matters : 
The  lodges,  greenhouses  and  garages 
Which,  for  our  purpose, 
Are  more  important  still. 
Remember  these. 

Within  one  palace,  — 
The  most  determinedly, 

Most  incongruously  monumental  of  them  all,  — 
Resides  our  magnate's  wife 
[39] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

(With  family  and  serviiu,  of  course; 

But  I  'm  concerned  with  her  alone, 

Or  nearly). 

How  the  money  came, 

The  fortune  vast  and  sudden, 

I'll  not  stop  to  say: 

Banking,  perhaps; 

With  interest  (called  discount)  paid  before 't  was 

due, 

And  half-days  pared  away,  and  five  days  lopped 
From  off  the  year;  —  no,  that  might  be  too  slow. 
Well,  traction,  possibly;  for  it  is  wonderful 
How  fast  the  nickels  and  the  dimes  pile  up. 
Or  deals  in  grain  or  stocks  upon  some  "board"; 
Or  Advertising,  with  a  good-sized  A. 
This  last,  I  'm  told,  brings  in  enormous  gains 
And  leads  at  once  to  pergolas  and  pools. 

All  this,  however, 

Delays  my  present  purpose  and  concern. 

That 's  with  the  lady's  character,  which  was 

Flawless,  superb; 

Bourgeois,  fundamentally  — 

If  one  may  use  the  word 

Without  misunderstanding. 

She  was  not  greatly  different  in  wealth 

From  what  she  'd  been  in  circumstances  narrow  — 

Save  that  she  felt  a  bit  the  better  armed 

To  keep  herself  unspotted  from  the  world. 

[40] 


DELICACY 

Shall  we  review  her  early  years? 
Day-school,  then,  with  other  little  girls 
Nice,  if  not  choice; 
And  Sunday-school, 
With  commendation  and  a  gift  book 
From  her  dear  pastor; 
Then,  boarding-school, 
Carefully  chosen,  but  not  too  costly. 
Then  a  few  seasons  of  society, 
In  unpretentious  forms; 
Then  followed  courtship,  somewhat  self- 
contained  — 

Not  tepid,  yet  not  ardent; 
Then  came  a  nice  home  wedding; 
Then  two  darling  children, 
Accomplished  in  due  course; 
Then  some  years  of  simple  home  life; 
And  then  "success,"  as  it  is  called, 
With  transplantation 
To  more  ambitious  and  emphatic  scenes. 

When  she  arrived,  the  chatelaines  round  about 
Viewed  her  with  glance  deliberate 
But  not  unfriendly.   After  a  while, 
They  found  her  rather  nice  — 
Not  vulgar,  not  vainglorious  — 
And  took  her  in. 

Now,  do  you  think  that  all  these  various  ladies 
Were  different  essentially, 
In  genesis  and  progress, 
f  41  1 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

From  the  new-comer? 

Why,  not  at  all,  — 

They'd  merely  got  there  first: 

Good,  pleasant,  friendly,  worthy  people, 

Correct  in  all  their  ways  and  manners, 

Women  and  men  alike. 

Through  years  and  years, 

No  scandal,  no  irregularity, 

No  slightest  impropriety, 

Had  sullied  the  fair  name 

Of  this  chaste  settlement 

And  its  charmed  circle. 

The  church-spires  evangelically  forbade; 

The  lovely  little  town  library 

Said  softly,  "No." 

The  press,  in  the  big  city 

Twenty  miles  away,  said, 

If  saying  so  were  necessary, 

"Oh,  beware!" 

You  see,  then,  that  these  fortunati 

Were  really  not  aristocrats : 

They  heeded  what  the  lesser  public  thought, 

And  walked  accordingly  —  through 

A  white  world  draped  and  deadened  in  the  snow. 

"What!"  you  will  ask;  "'midst  these  three 

thousand  souls 
No  passion,  no  mischance?" 
Ah,  me!   I  greatly  fear 
You  have  your  mind  too  strongly  fixed 

r  42 1 


DELICACY 

On  Gothic  gables  and  Renaissance  towers 

And  "period"  furnishings. 

Turn  back  your  thoughts 

Toward  lodge,  garage  and  cottage. 

Now  and  then  our  good  and  happy  folk 

Would  sin  and  suffer  and  atone, 

But  do  it  all  vicariously: 

The  tenantry,  retainers,  unregarded  "hands" 

Such  as  merely  filled  the  chinks 

Of  this  great  social  edifice  — • 

Sometimes  came  forward  on  occasion 

(Such  an  occasion  as  we  now  approach), 

To  act  as  proxies. 

Among  those  plain  persons 

Who,  in  middle  life,  or  past, 

Were  piecing  out  their  days 

By  service  with  the  rich  and  great, 

We  find  some  young  folks,  two  at  least: 

A  girl  of  seventeen,  still  busy  with  her  books 

At  a  good  school  near  by; 

A  youth  of  twenty,  one  whose  fixed  intent 

To  rise  above  his  "station" 

Had  pushed  him  to  the  city  and  to  college. 

One  of  this  pair,  I  '11  not  say  which, 

Acknowledged,  through  parental  ties, 

A  certain  fealty  to  our  chatelaine; 

The  other,  an  allegiance,  not  unlike, 

In  other  quarters. 


43 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

These  two  young  things, 

In  over-charged  mid-August, 

Had  met  and  mingled  foolishly. 

One  did  not  understand 

What  admiration  might  actually  mean; 

And  neither  realized  to  what  sad  lengths 

Their  dalliance  would  lead. 

The  world,  the  cruel-eyed,  was  to  be  faced; 

Neither  knew  what  to  do 

Toward  beating  back  the  coming  horror 

Into  the  dark. 

One  morning  tracks  in  the  winter  woods, 

Winding  and  weaving  to  and  fro, 

Preluded  the  whole  tale  — 

With  all  its  pauses,  stumblings,  hesitations, 

Pleadings  and  despair; 

A  girlish  figure,  decently  composed, 

Lying  in  the  snow, 

With  poison-grains  re-crystallized  on  pallid  lips; 

Near  by,  within  a  lesser  maze  of  footmarks, 

Which  spoke  of  dread,  of  vacillation,  of  remorse, 

The  body  of  a  youth  all  stark, 

A  weapon  at  his  side; 

Within  two  homes 

Two  simple  mothers  insisting  fondly, 

The  one  upon  a  daughter's  stainlessness, 

The  other  on  the  pure  nobleness  of  a  son. 

All  unavailing 

The  spires, 

[44  ] 


DELICACY 

The  sweet  reading-room, 

The  press: 

Penalty  paid, 

There  in  the  very  scene 

Of  earlier  pleasures. 

Came  the  authorities, 

Tramping  through  the  snowy  woods; 

The  pressmen  expeditiously  pictured  them  — 

Those  once-green,  dusk  recesses, 

Now  so  stripped  and  cold: 

Our  woods,  our  own  estate,  the  sylvan  scene 

Where  our  dear,  cherished  Mabel,  just  that  age, 

Would  sometimes  stoop  to  pluck  first  violets 

in  May. 

To  our  Lady's  sense 
Every  slight  swell  or  hollow 
Shadowed  by  oak  or  thorn 
Shuddered  and  shivered 
'Neath  the  profaning  touch  of  sin. 
She  herself,  like  a  smirched  ermine, 
Turned  up  appealing  and  protesting  eyes 
And  twitched  and  slunk  away  from  common  sight. 
Papers  were  barred  from  the  chateau, 
And  Mabel,  whose  chaste  eye  and  ear 
Must  never  know  such  horrors, 
Was  swiftly  sent  to  friends 
Far,  far  outside  the  zone  of  local  news, 
The  day  before  some  six  young  girls  in  white 
And  a  soft-spoken,  cautious  clergyman 
[45] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Stood  beneath  one  of  the  spires 

To  put  the  best  face  on  a  naughty  deed. 

Next  spring  the  family  left  for  other  scenes 

Before  the  violets  came. 

When  they  returned 

(And  with  them  Mabel 

In  all  her  innocent,  girlish  charm) 

The  sparse  woods  had  been  leveled 

And  in  their  place  there  stood 

(Proof  of  laborious  months 

Spent  by  the  soil's  new  owner) 

A  rustling  field  of  corn 

All  ready  for  the  harvest. 

Here  and  there  a  simple  bloom  of  aster 

Or  ripening  spray  of  goldenrod 

Stood  with  bright  confidence 

Amid  the  humpy  furrows, 

And  no  kind  hand  stretched  forth 

Through  the  rank  growth 

To  save  it  from  the  cursory,  rapacious  reaper 

That  even  then 

Might  be  upon  the  way. 


POSTPONEMENT 

WHEN  Albert  F.  McComb 

Died  in  his  native  Dodgetown 

At  the  age  of  sixty-odd, 

People  said  —  the  few  who  said  anything  at  all  — 

That  he  had  lived  a  futile  life, 

And  that  Europe  was  to  blame : 

His  continual  hankering  after  the  Old  World 

Had  made  him  a  failure  in  the  New. 

At  seventeen  he  was  reading  "In  Dickens-Land," 

just  out, 

And  Ruskin's  "Stones  of  Venice," 
And  Maudle's  "Life  of  Raphael"; 
And  he  was  never  the  same  afterward. 
He  decided  on  romance. 

Romance,  with  Albert,  was  always  a  good  bit  back, 
And  some  distance  away  — 
Least  of  all  in  booming  Dodgetown, 
In  the  year  of  grace  eighteen-seventy-three. 
There  was  Shelley  poetizing  at  Pisa 
(Thirty-five  years  before  Albert  was  born) ; 
And  there  was  Byron  with  his  countess 
In  that  conspiratorial  old  palace  at  Ravenna 
(Four  thousand  wide  miles  from  Main  Street, 
Or  more).   Et  cetera. 

r  47 1 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

At  twenty-one  Albert  "took  a  position,'* 

But  he  never  put  his  heart  into  the  work. 

At  twenty-five  he  might  have  bought  a  share  in  the 
business; 

But,  "No,"  he  said,  "I  may  cross  over  soon; 

Let  me  be  foot-free,  and  fancy-free  —  no  entangle 
ments  here." 

When  he  was  twenty-six 

Adelaide  Waters,  tired  of  waiting, 

Married  an  ambitious  young  hardware-dealer, 

And  on  the  whole  did  well. 

But  Albert  cared  little: 

"She"  was  waiting  on  the  other  side. 

Early  he  became  a  boarder, 
And  a  boarder  he  continued  to  be. 
"Why  tie  myself  up  with  property?"  he  asked; 
"The  time  will  come,  and  I  must  be  without  con 
straint." 

Thus,  without  constraint,  without  career,  without 

estate, 

Without  home  and  family, 
He  waited  for  the  great  hour, 
Living  on  slick  steel-engravings, 
And  flushed,  mendacious  chromo-lithographs, 
And  ecstatic  travel-books  penned  by  forlorn  English 

spinsters. 

[  48  1 


POSTPONEMENT 

In  the  new  West  others  wooed  Fortune  and  won 

her; 

But  Albert  was  spending  fortune  on  fortune  abroad 
Before  he  had  fairly  learned  to  pay  his  way  at  home. 
He  lived  in  a  palace  on  the  Lung'  Arno : 
He  saw  the  yellow  river  plainly  enough 
From  the  back  window  of  the  two-story  frame  on 

Ninth  Street. 

He  went  to  the  office  in  a  plum-colored  coat, 
Of  the  cut  of  the  early  'twenties, 
And  a  voluminous  stock  — 
Though  others  might  see  but  "mixed  goods" 
And  a  four-in-hand. 
Some  damsel,  principessa  or  contadina, 
Hung  on  his  lips,  or  carelessly  betrayed  his  heart; 
And  he,  the  young  poet,  — 
Though  he  had  never  written  a  line 
(Stuff  such  as  this  not  yet  having  been  invented),  — 
Lay  down  in  dreamless  slumber  beside  Keats, 
Close  to  the  walls  of  Rome. 

Some  years  passed  by, 

But  Albert  never  budged  from  home. 

Savings  grew  slowly;  no  kindly  patron  appeared;  no 
rich  relation  died. 

But  less  and  less  did  Albert  live 

In  terms  of  Dodgetown  and  of  Caldwell  County. 

It  was  all  Lambeth  and  Lincoln's  Inn  and  Bridge- 
water  House; 

The  Schwarzwald  and  the  Forest  of  Arden; 
[49] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

The  cypresses  of  Verona,  the  cascades  of  Tivoli, 
And  the  Pincian  Hill. 


At  forty  Albert  was  getting  a  lukewarm  salary  for 

lukewarm  work; 

And  some  small  five-and-a-half  per-cent  investments 
Brought  in  three  hundred  and  thirty  dollars  extra 

per  annum. 
"In  two  or  three  years  I  shall  risk  going,"  he  would 

say; 
"And  then...  !" 

But  if  Albert  stayed  single,  all  his  sisters  did  not; 

And  if  he  himself  kept  on  living,  several  of  his  adult 
relatives  died; 

And  when  he  was  fifty-two  a  group  of  grand-nieces 

Asked  him  to  help  with  their  grocery  bills, 

And  to  see  that  their  mortgage-interest  got  paid  on 
time. 

Other  things  of  like  nature  happened, 

And  Albert  presently  perceived  that  not  every  "sin 
gle"  man 

Can  escape  the  obligations  and  responsibilities  of  the 
married  state. 

"Well,  I  must  wait,"  he  said; 

And  he  began  to  collect  views  of  the  Dolomites. 

Albert  prosed  along  past  sixty, 
As  our  muse  indicated  at  the  start. 
His  young  relatives  grew  up, 
[50] 


POSTPONEMENT 

And  some  of  them  married; 

And  those  who  remained  single 

Were  cared  for  by  their  sisters'  husbands. 

And  one  day  Albert  got  word 

That  a  wealthy  cousin,  twice  removed, 

Who  had  made  millions  out  of  the  Michigan  forests, 

And  had  multiplied  them  into  tens  of  millions  on  the 

stock  exchange, 

And  whom  he  had  not  heard  from  for  twenty  years, 
Had  "crossed,"  as  Albert  liked  to  say, 
And  had  left  him  a  fortune  indeed. 

Albert  sent  for  steamship  folders; 

But  a  dubious  July 

Was  followed  by  a  frenetic  August. 

The  ancient  world, 

So  grandiose  and  so  romantic 

To  Albert's  steadfast  eyes, 

W7ent  mad. 

'"Man  marks  the  earth  with  ruin,'"  he  mused; 

"But  'his  control  —  Stops  with  the  .  .  .  '" 

Yet  the  sea  itself  was  become  a  shambles, 

And  the  realm  of  faery,  beyond, 

A  trampled  mire  of  blood  and  wreckage, 

Albert  stood  on  the  brink  of  things,  as  ever; 

But  the  earth  heaved  beneath  his  feet, 

And  the  fabric  reared  through  forty  years  fell  in  ruin 

on  his  head. 

"There  will  be  no  peace  in  my  time,"  he  murmured; 
[51  ] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

"Nor  any  salve  in  generations. 
For  me  there  is  no  world  at  all  — 
What  is  my  million,  here?" 

Albert  retired. 

He  studied  the  stripes  in  the  wall-paper 

And  considered  his  weak  old  hands  on  the  counter 
pane. 

His  eyes  were  become  too  dim  to  see  the  Here  and 
Now, 

Or  to  divine  the  local  glories  Just  About  to  Be. 

In  a  negative  way  he  had  been  a  good  enough  man; 

And,  "Heaven  will  do,"  he  sighed; 

"But  —  has  it  a  Val  d'Arno,  a  Villa  d'Este, 

Or  a—  ?" 

But  you,  kind  friend  and  reader, 

Shall  have  the  last  word  here; 

And  mind  you  choose  it  well. 


POLLY  GREENE 

DOUBLET  and  hose  — 

Such  was  the  disposition 

Of  Polly  Greene. 

Before  her  seventh  year 

She  had  clothed  mind  and  soul 

In  pants  and  roundabout. 

As  her  life  went  on, 

She  slightly  changed 

Her  masculine  habiliments 

To  keep  in  touch 

With  current  fashions 

And  increasing  age, 

But  thought  of  going  back  to  petticoats 

Only  when  't  was  too  late. 

Tomboy  at  tender  age, 

Hail-fellow-well-met  ere  twenty, 

She  left  her  native  Priceburg, 

After  an  independent,  orageuse  career, 

And  came  to  town 

To  be  a  soul  more  independent  still,  — 

"One  of  the  boys"  indeed. 

Charlie  McBride, 
Priceburg's  richest  youth, 
Who  drove  a  buggy  and  a  pair  of  bays, 
[53] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Proposed  before  she  left; 

But  Polly  stood  him  off. 

Art,  she  thought,  would  do,  at  present, 

And  do  alone. 

At  the  big  school 

She  bloused  it  with  the  fellows, 

Picked  up  with  eagerness 

Their  jargon,  slang  and  blague, 

Tried  to  make  her  brush-work 

As  "strong"  and  tough  as  theirs,  — 

Trained  with  the  rabble  of  resilient  males, 

And  paid  her  way  from  her  own  purse. 

Proposals  followed  here  — 

Well-meant  or  ill. 

Polly  stood  off  these  new  chaps  too: 

Dian  when  she  could  be, 

And  Penthesilea  when  she  must. 

After  a  while  these  men  —  and  others  — 

Understood; 

While,  in  the  background  of  the  scene  — 

And  of  her  mind  — 

Was  Charles  McBride 

To  keep  her  feminine. 

Back  home,  next  summer,  in  vacation  time, 
McBride  proposed  again. 
Polly  was  rather  pleased, 
But  could  not  "feel"  it: 
[54  ] 


POLLY  GREENE 

After  that  bunch  of  pungent  masculines 
Charlie  seemed  tame,  insipid. 
He  meant  well,  doubtless; 
He  was  even  flattering; 
But  —  let  the  matter  lie. 

Presently  our  Polly, 

As  painter, 

Reached  consciousness  of  better  things: 

Widened  horizon  and  a  brighter  light. 

She  went  to  Paris. 

The  boys  back  home  were  not  a  patch 

On  the  wild  crew  of  impudent  rapins 

That  waited  for  her  there; 

But  m  et  armis 

Our  heroine, 

Virgin  and  amazon, 

Held  even  these  in  check; 

And  when  she  'd  reached 

The  very  culm  and  acme 

Of  rowdy-dowdyness 

She  sent  her  photo  home. 

Charlie  McBride  proposed  by  letter. 

"I've  kept  my  charm!"  she  thought, 

And  filed  his  note  away. 

Polly  stayed  on  in  Paris. 
Her  visage,  like  her  painting, 
Grew  hard  and  "strong"; 
But  no  new  photo  found  its  way 
[55] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Across  the  deep. 

That  first  and  only  one, 

Conned  like  a  classic 

By  her  remote  adorer, 

Was  all. 

In  return,  he  sent  his  own. 

He'd  given  up  the  buggy  for  a  four-in-hand, 

And  showed  himself,  en  cocker,  on  the  box. 

Yes,  Charlie  stayed  at  home, 

A  chump,  constant  but  soft, 

Just  a  provincial  fixture: 

Too  rich  to  get  a  move  on, 

Save  as  he  toured  through  Douglas  County, 

And  the  wide  lands  'twixt  Danville  and  Mattoon, 

There  was  a  place,  he  wrote, 

Beside  himself  for  her. 

"How  nice  of  him!"  thought  Polly, 

And  she  packed  her  traps, 

And  went  to  Egypt, 
Thence  to  India, 
Painting  strange  sights  and  folk, 
Holding  her  own 
'Gainst  all  and  several. 

And  in  Bombay  she  found  her  first  gray  hair. 
When   she   returned  to   Priceburg   there   were 
more. 


Times  again  had  changed; 
He  met  her  at  the  depot 

[  56  ] 


POLLY  GREENE 

In  a  proud  motor-car. 

He  saw  —  but  would  not  see  — 

Her  graying  hair. 

Well,  he  was  older  too; 

And  as  he  whizzed  her  on 

Toward  the  drear  homestead 

Where  her  parents  sat, 

Quite  ready  for  the  grave, 

He  spoke  again. 

She  laid  her  hand  on  his; 

"Oh,  Charlie!  this  is  good  of  you!'*  she  said; 

"It's  like  you;  you  are  Kindness'  own  self." 

Almost  in  tears, 

She  knew  't  was  he  that  kept  her  young, 

And  woman  still. 

And  yet,  next  month, 

She  left  the  old  folks 

To  fate's  hard  chance 

And  shaped  her  course  for  the  Pacific. 

Middle-aged  —  yes,  more  — 

But  strong  and  gallant, 

Indefatigable, 

Masterfully  alive, 

She  drove  toward  Honolulu: 

Her  "art"  must  enter  on  another  "phase." 

And  there,  some  three  months  later, 

Came  the  news: 

"Charlie"  McBride  was  dead. 

157] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

What  was  she  now? 

No  woman, 

No  longer  young; 

He  who  had  kept  her  such  was  gone. 

She  had  cast  down  the  crown  of  life 

(A  coronet  of  paste,  if  you  prefer), 

And  what  was  left? 

An  aged  creature  indeterminate, 

A  mere  speck  epicene, 

In  that  vast  futile  world 

Of  sky  and  sea. 

Well,  do  you  ask  an  end? 
Must  every  life  have  that? 
Consider  the  existences  —  so  many  - 
Which  drag  and  shuffle  on, 
Rueful  and  frustrate  .  .  . 
Here  I  leave  you. 


MANNERS 

FRANKLY,  I  hardly  know  whether 

To  choose  as  my  present  protagonist 

Michael  McGinniss,  whose  mother 

Called  him  so  fondly,  "You,  Mickey!"  —  or 

Robert  George  Worthington,  Junior  — 

Robbie  or  Bobby  or  Bob,  at  life's  differing  stages. 

Both  of  these  names  are  dactylic, 

Fitting  in  well  with  my  measure. 

Maybe  the  second's  the  better. 

Robert  George  Worthington,  Junior  — 

No;  I'll  begin  with  the  other. 

Mickey  McGinniss,  dear  reader, 

Dirty  and  noisy  and  rowdy, 

Son  of  a  home  most  deplorable, 

Forged  more  or  less  for  himself  and  tumbled  up 

anyhow. 

Child  of  the  sidewalk  and  gutter? 
Believe  it,  my  brother !  — 
(And  sister).  Were  I  rewriting  these  lines, 
"Sister"  should  have  the  first  place;  for  I  am  a 

feminist, 

If  but  for  the  sake  of  our  Robert's  nice  mother  — 
Dear,  delicate  lady.  Returning  to  Mickey: 

Little  of  schooling  had  he;  —  no  "education," 
[59] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Whether  in  sense  Anglo-Saxon  or  Latin. 
Warm-hearted,   hot-tempered,    quick-fisted,    loose- 

tongued  — 

Such  language  in  front  of  his  mother  and  sisters! 
And  when  he  was  ten  —  and  that  barely  — 
They  gave  him  a  cap  and  a  telegram. 
Why  is  it,  pray,  that  those  messenger-boys 
All  seem  so  tiny,  so  stunted? 
Yes,  they're  put  into  long  trousers  too  early. 

All  kinds  of  hours,  in  all  sorts  of  places ! 
A  twelvemonth  his  term,  and  it  did  n't  improve  him. 
Freed  from  this  life,  he  grew  stalwart  and  cocky. 
"He'll   make   his   way,"   said   that   fond,   hopeful 

mother. 
"He  will!"  said  the  corner  policeman. 

Returning  at  last 

To  Robert  George  Worthington,  Junior: 
"What  a  nice  boy!"  exclaimed  every  lady. 
Always  clean  hands  and  clean  collars  — 
Tho'  not  yet  eleven,  dear  people! 
Always  so  neat  and  so  quiet  at  table; 
Always  got  up  from  his  chair  when  mamma 
Came  into  the  parlor; 

Kept  to  his  books,  and  kept  his  books  tidy; 
Never  went  down  to  the  beach  with  the  rabble, 
But  tubbed  it  at  home  in  papa's  own  tiled  bathroom; 
"Yes,  sir"  and  "No,  ma'am"  to  all  of  the  friends  of 
the  family. 

[60] 


MANNERS 

"Lord!"  cried  papa's  knowing  partner, 

In  talk  with  the  mother  of  his, 

"Pity  the  kid! 

Why,  by  the  time  he  is  twenty, 

Loose  in  the  world,  he'll  be  a  poor  little  canary, 

Out  in  a  passel  of  sparrows. 

What  they  won't  do  tb  him!" 

Quite  so,  my  friends;  if  a  fellow's  made  soft  in  his 

non-age, 

Pulpy  indeed  will  he  be  when  he 's  thirty. 
Don't    teach    your    growing    boy    manners  —  that 

queers  him. 

While  Robert  —  or  Bob  —  was  at  college  — 

("Shucks!  it  will  spoil  him  for  business!" 

Exploded  that  far-seeing  partner)  — 

Mickey  was  driving  a  wagon, 

Handing  round  butter,  eggs,  soap  and  potatoes. 

Set  in  a  rather  tough  ward  was  this  grocery, 

And  a  few  times  a  year  it  served  as  a  polling-place  — 

Oh!  but  it  was  tough! 

(This  in  the  day  ere  our  women  folks  voted.) 

Mickey  became  a  clerk  of  election; 
Later,  the  "cap"  of  his  precinct. 
Bad  company?   Well,  I  should  say  so!  — 
Talk  of  your  fist-fights  and  Billingsgate ! 
Husky  and  hectoring, 
Mickey  would  bulldoze  the  timorous  voter. 
Thus,  before  long,  he  received  from  a  somebody 
[61  ] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Big  and  important  in  city  or  county 

Wagon  and  pair  and  took  to  political  hauling. 

Meanwhile  our  Robert  was  moving  ahead 

Under  the  Elms,  —  making  friends,  making  Bones, 

Making  all,  through  his  manners. 

"Our  Lady  of  Lawrance,"  they  called  him: 

Cordial,  correct, 

Confident,  quiet, 

Perfectly  straight,  but  no  sissy. 

When  he  came  out  from  the  shade 

His  satisfied  father  carried  his  influence 

Into  the  offices  (private)  of  one  or  two  sizable  com 
panies, 

And  Robert  walked  after. 

"The  boy  is  a  charmer!"  said  old  Eli  Belden, 

The  grim  and  the  grimy: 

"Possibly  not  worth  sour  apples  — 

And  yet  I  will  chance  him." 

Eli  gave  him  a  desk  and  next  day  went  forth  to  a 
manicure. 

Our  Robert  walked  on;  not  quickly,  but  steadily. 
His  talents  were  fair  —  by  no  means  remarkable; 
But  every  one  liked  him:  address,  good  my  mas 
ters. 

A  little  past  thirty,  he  felt  well-established  — 
Assured  of  success  through  the  rest  of  his  lifetime. 
And  then  he  looked  out  on  the  city. 
[62] 


MANNERS 

Dolent,  it  needed  his  eye,  heaven  knows; 

And  his  hand;  and  his  heart. 

Thirty  and  three  —  that's  the  best  age  for  reformers. 

His  eye  and  his  hand  both  fell  on  Michael  McGinniss, 

Now  that  most  heinous  of  creatures, 

A  political  contractor  — 

Words  that  won't  march  with  my  rhythm; 

Nor  should  I  want  them  to  do  so. 

Nor  could  mere  words  paint  the  things  that  were  doing 

Both  in  political  councils  and  out  in  the  streets  of 
the  city. 

Mickey's  own  work  under  contract  was  flagrant; 

Worse  were  the  actions  by  which  he  was  aiding 

Fraud  and  corruption  to  keep  up  a  grip 

On  place  and  on  power. 

Young,  bold,  and  loyal  —  't  was  thus  that  the  elders 
appraised  him, 

And  let  him  just  go  the  whole  limit, 

He  profiting  little  himself.  Law  caught  him  red- 
handed, 

And  clapped  him  in  jail.  Then,  bail-bonds  not  easy; 

The  lame  duck  deserted.  Six  months  in  the  lock-up. 

That  sobered  and  chastened  and  just  a  bit  broke  him. 

Then,  trial;  and  nothing  gained  here, 

Save  expenses  and  worry.  And  then  to  the  lock-up 
(another) 

For  good  —  a  matter  of  lustrums. 

Our  college  man  followed  him  into  the  court-room, 

And  followed  the  course  of  the  trial  —  helped  run  it. 

[63] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Then, 

Hating  the  sin,  not  the  sinner, 

Thinking  the  flail  of  the  law 

Might  better  have  fallen  on  backs  more  deserving, 

Robert  put  on  his  panoply  — 

Cut-away,  dog-skins,  silk  hat,  and  Malacca  — 

And  hied  him  away  to  the  Governor, 

Meaning  to  ask  for  indulgence  —  yes,  pardon. 

The  Governor, 

Quite  the  near-gentleman, 

Welcomed  him  kindly  — 

Had  met  him,  in  fact,  a  few  times  in  society. 

Robert,  restrainedly  cordial,  suavely  insistent, 

Deferential,  yet  somehow  or  other  superior, 

Made  his  impression. 

Those  roundabout  found  him  simply  astounding. 

It  was  race;  it  was  blood;  it  was  manners. 

The  Governor  yielded. 

If  he  governed  a  State  with  a  State  Board  of  Pardons, 

He  promised  his  help  to  make  matters  go  easily. 

If  he  governed  alone,  then  he  acted  alone. 

At  any  rate,  Michael  McGinniss  got  freedom. 

Years  passed.    (They  do,  you  perceive, 
In  all  of  these  pieces.)   At  forty 
Robert  George  Worthington  rules  as  sole  head 
Of  a  thundering  big  corporation. 
Mickey  McGinniss  is  boss  of  its  teaming  department, 
And  men,  in  his  eyes,  are  but  mules. 
[64] 


MANNERS 

The  two  seldom  meet,  yet  whenever  they  do  so 
It's  "Yes,  sir,"  and  "No,  sir,"   with  Mickey 

McGinniss, 

And  he  always  remembers  his  hat. 
And  so  much  for  manners. 


DEATH  OF  AUNT  JULIANA 

COME,  take  my  hand. 

Together  we  will  go 

Back,  back,  far  back, 

In  the  dark  cave  of  time;  — 

Back  to  that  date,  remote,  incredible, 

Which  saw  the  birth  of  Juliana  King. 

How  long  her  life ! 

Friends,  acquaintances,  and  relatives  - 

The  last,  especially  — 

For  years  had  wondered 

When,  if  ever,  she  would  die. 

But,  after  all,  let  us  make  pause 

In  our  recessional. 

The  middle  'fifties  saw  Juliana 

A  girl  of  twenty: 

A  vivid,  sparkling  creature, 

With  fire  in  her  dark  eyes, 

And  energy  for  ten. 

Jehiel  Prince, 

The  rugged  founder  of  the  house, 
Viewed  her  at  rare  intervals 
From  under  gray,  knit  brows 
And  disapproved : 

[66] 


DEATH  OF  AUNT  JULL\NA 

Too  much  vitality,  action,  noise  — 

A  girlish  whirlwind. 

And  after  she  had  tried,  one  night, 

To  sweep  away,  Francesca-like, 

On  the  aer  perso  with  a  certain  youth, 

And  was  brought  back  home, 

With  scanty  time  to  spare, 

Jehiel  never  looked  at  her  at  all. 

Live  in  the  house  she  must,  and  did,  — 

And  long 

(The  other  youths  all  knew 

And  none  would  take  a  chance) ; 

But  to  her  sister's  husband's  father 

She  was  nought. 

Jehiel,  the  forceful  and  the  prosperous, 
Slept  with  his  fathers, 
And  James  reigned  in  his  stead: 
A  man  who  might  not  add 
To  what  he  had  received, 
But  who,  with  sense  and  caution, 
Was  able  quite  to  hold  his  own; 
A  foe  to  all  excesses  and  extravagance; 
And  under  him  our  heroine 
Attained  her  fortieth  year. 
None  would  have  called  her  even  thirty-three. 
The  vital  sap  ran  freely 
And  hope  was  beckoning  ever. 
On  provocation  slight,  or  none, 
"Intentions"  filled  the  void; 
[  67] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

And  eccentricity  began  to  sketch 

A  grotesque  mask  upon  a  face  once  fair. 

Temper  developed; 

Rule  and  reason 

Could  set  no  steadfast  bounds; 

And  Juliana  King 

Became  a  cross,  a  trial. 

The  family  could  pay  her  way,  and  did; 

But  she  was  "one  too  many." 

They  prompted  her  to  journeys,  jaunts, 

Sojourns  and  visits  — 

Ever  the  same  result; 

She  came  back  home 

To  the  relief  of  puzzled,  harassed  friends 

And  the  affliction  of  the  household  all. 

"She'll  live  too  long!"  James  muttered. 

And  —  for  him  —  she  did. 

She  was  fifty-odd 

When  Raymond  took  the  helm; 

Yet  no  one  would  have  dared 

To  call  her  forty-four. 

Tingling  with  life, 

Self-willed  and  masterful, 

She  held  her  place  in  house  and  family 

And  faced  the  young  folks  down. 

Raymond's  generation  was  indeed  the  third, 

And  he  the  perfect  type  of  vigor  gone  to  seed 

Forceless  and  careless. 


DEATH  OF  AUNT  JULIANA 

The  family  fortune  began  to  slip  away, 

And  a  young  wife  of  his  own  kind 

Helped  things  along. 

Juliana  became  more  than  a  cross; 

She  was  a  heavy  burden. 

Then  followed  strife 

'Twixt  woman  young  and  woman  old. 

"Will  she  live  forever?"  cried  the  vexed  Raymond. 

"Send  her  away!"  shouted  his  furious  wife. 

What!  —  "send  her  away"? 

Mop  back  the  sea?  Dislodge  the  polar  star? 

Juliana  went, 

Called  out  the  family's  shame  and  cruelty  among  her 

friends, 
Then  came  back  home  to  roost,  a  curse  indeed. 

When  she  reached  sixty, 

Respite  seemed  to  dawn. 

Imprudence  —  glaring,  even  for  her  — 

Sent  her  to  bed. 

She  coughed  and  burned  and  shivered; 

And  every  heart  beating  in  distant  rooms 

Secretly  hoped  —  I  '11  not  say  what. 

Doctors  came,  and  nurses; 

Bottles  in  rows;  and  poultices; 

And  gas-jets  burning  through  the  night; 

And  household  order  overthrown. 

Expense  piled  up, 

With  every  penny  grudged  and  felt. 

It  was  the  deuce. 

[69] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

"May  she  but  go!"  prayed  Raymond  in  his 

den  — 
He  who,  a  child,  had  hugged  his  auntie  close. 

"Doctors,"  I  said;  the  plural. 

A  second  came,  for  consultation  — 

A  grizzled  bachelor. 

His  interest,  professional  or  other, 

Mounted  to  highest  pitch. 

He  overrode  all  bedside  etiquette, 

Gfappled  the  problem  on  his  own, 

And  after  many  taxing  days  and  nights 

He  pulled  the  tried  soul  through. 

In  a  month  she  was  herself  again  — 

Indomitable,  indestructible, 

Younger  than  her  years, 

And  vital  as  the  spring. 

Her  friend,  some  years  her  junior,  — 

Though  neither  knew,  and  none  would  have 

surmised,  — 
Looked  on  and  lingered. 
Was  it  love? 

Or  pity  for  a  slighted  —  what? 
(The  monosyllable  I  need  eludes  me  here.) 
Or  was  it  joy  in  his  own  miracle? 
What  did  he  see? 
But,  if  it  comes  to  that, 
What  did  you  see? 
There  are  eyes  for  all. 

[  70] 


DEATH  OF  AUNT  JULIANA 

In  fine,  they  married. 
Wife,  now,  and  idol  — 
What  you  will  — 
Revived,  triumphant, 
Her  day  had  come. 
She  could  motor  past 
Her  nephew's  house  — 
A  lesser  house  than  once  — 
Scorning  both  it  and  him. 

And  when  she  died  .  .  .  ?  you  ask? 
Died?  Died  nothing! 
She 's  living  yet. 


CHARM 

THE  aura 

Of  Gerald  Jean  La  Croix 

Was  delicate,  perhaps, 

Yet  dense  and  pungent  and  pervasive. 

It  affected  men  in  one  way, 

And  women  in  another. 

The  average  male  would  soon  protest, 

"This  is  too  thick!'* 

Or  cry,  "Oh,  give  me  air!"  and 

Go. 

The  other  sex,  however,  would  bask  in  Gerald's 

emanations, 

As  if  wrapped  and  rocked 
In  the  languorous  luxuriance  of  a  conservatory 
Where  narcissi  bloomed. 
At  twenty-four  Gerald  possessed 
Plump  hands,  moist  eyes,  locks  the  reverse  of  dry, 
And,  despite  his  gentleness, 
An  obvious  overplus  of  health. 
No   woman   quite  escaped:    least  of  all,  Letitia 

Baynes. 

Perhaps  old  Jasper  Baynes  himself 

Knew  for  what  he  was  piling  up  that  money  — 

and  for  whom: 
Perhaps  not.   In  either  case 
t  72] 


CHARM 

He  went  on  doggedly,  automatically, 
Year  after  year  —  some  forty  of  them  — 
Putting  dollar  to  dollar. 

He  must  have  had  a  plan,  an  object,  a  reason,  don't 
you  think? 

Yet  some  hint  as  to  the  ultimate  destination  of  accu 
mulated  wealth 

Might  have  come  to  him  from  so  common  an  object 
as  a  beehive; 

Or  an  example  of  disinterested  toil  for  others 

From  certain  clever  workers  in  his  own  factory, 

Who,  dowered  with  inventiveness, 

Seemed  willing  to  place  their  gifts  and  skill 

At  the  disposal  of  the  "business," 

Profiting  its  proprietor  notably, 

Themselves  not  one  iota. 

But  instead  of  mulling  over  analogies, 
Jasper  died  abruptly  —  just  like  that!  — 
Leaving  a  few  hundred  thousand  dollars 
To  a  young  wife 

Whom,  after  a  long  period  of  bachelorhood, 
He'd  married  but  a  year  before. 

The  captious  said  of  Gerald,  later, 
Beginning  with  his  name  — 
But  here  I  '11  pause  to  register  the  surmise 
That  few  of  them  could  have  accomplished, 
On  the  basis  of  mere  personal  charm, 
[  73  ] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

A  hundredth  part  of  that  which  he  achieved  so 

readily. 

Yes,  they  said  his  real  cognomen 
Was  as  prosaic  as  you  please  — 
That  he  had  taken  his  present  one 
From  some  Canadian  uncle, 
And  then  arranged  the  rest  to  suit; 
That  he  had  begun  life  at  Bay  City  or  Saginaw 
Among  the  buttoned  boots  and  kid  slippers  of  a  shoe 

store; 

That,  when  he  first  came  to  town, 
He  dabbled  behind  a  counter  in  haberdashery; 
That  his  employer,  in  his  own  family's  absence  abroad, 
Had  taken  the  lad  for  a  summer  fortnight 
To  tonic  Charlevoix, 
Putting  him  forth  as  a  protege", 
Or  even  in  the  light  of  an  adopted  son. 
At  all  events,  it  was  high  up 
In  the  clear  and  breezy  North, 
When  he  was  sporting  spaciously  and  showily 
In  August  wantonness, 
That  Letitia  Baynes, 
Young  widow  of  three  months, 
First  met  him. 

In  every  aspect,  mood  and  gesture 
He  spoke  compellingly  for  himself  —  and  her; 
While,  as  for  the  gossip, 
That  (howsoever  timed  or  tuned) 
Never  once  reached  her  ears. 

174] 


CHARM 

He  was  a  bright  and  florid  blossom 

Swaying,  long-stemmed,  like  an  oriflamme, 

In  breezes  of  sufficient  fiscal  force, 

And    casting    carelessly    on    that    crisp    northern 

air 

Odorous  addresses  which  fully  served  —  and  more  — 
To  draw  the  various  butterflies 
That  fluttered  round  about  in  the  usual  mid-summer 

mood; 

Letitia  first  and  foremost. 
He  won  her;  it  was  for  him 
That  Jasper  Baynes  had  moiled  till  sixty-one. 

Next  winter  to  Palm  Beach: 

Instinctively  he  knew  his  own. 

On  the  way  down,  or  back,  his  wife  — 

But  let  me  ponder:  Can  people  conveniently 

Fall  from  the  platforms  of  observation-cars? 

Not  with  plausibility  complete. 

They  may  slip  better  from  the  smooth  after-decks 

Of  yachts  that  sail,  by  moonlight, 

Through  languid,  Southern,  February  seas. 

Well,  anyhow,  when  Gerald  Jean  La  Croix 

Came  North  again,  he  was  a  widower  of  twenty- 
five, 

Not  over-clouded  by  appropriate  sadness; 

And  (despite  the  claims  of  certain  relatives  by  mar 
riage) 

He  was  wealthy. 


[75 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

But  "north"  is  a  most  comprehensive  word, 
Including  scenes  more  vibrant,  rich,  rewarding  —  to 

some  — 

Than  any  that  are  offered  by  the  Middle  West. 
Our  Gerald  had  a  native  instinct  and  affinity 
For  the  swell  and  the  exclusive  (lovely  words!) 
And  the  "best"; 

And  now,  at  last,  he  had  the  fullest  means 
To  gratify  his  longings. 
In  the  South  he  had  known  how  to  make  a  hundred 

thousand  tell 

Among  a  hundred  millions; 
And  in  the  East  he  took  up  several  threads 
Whose  spinning  had  been  begun  elsewhere. 
These  various  threads  ran  with  marked  directness 
From  Floridian  sands  to  New  England  rocks : 
The  "guests"  came  back,  just  like  the  "hosts"  and 

waiters. 

One  of  these  threads  tied,  in  due  course 
(Speaking  in  terms  of  poesy  and  compliment), 
A  lovers'  knot. 

Our  Gerald's  personal  emanations  were  as  efficacious 
Among  the  coves  and  reefs  of  Maine  as  elsewhere. 
In  another  year  he  was  again  a  husband  — 
A  second  widow. 

His  first  wife  had  been  three  years  his  senior; 
This  new  one  was  thirteen. 
The  first  was  merely  well-to-do; 
The  second  had  her  million, 
f  76  1 


CHARM 

Bought  by  each: 

They  had  appreciated  —  so  had  he. 

And  besides,  the  new  mate  was  own  aunt 

To  a  young  thing  whose  mother's  fortune, 

Preposterously  swelled  by  marriage,  by  bequests, 

By  boundless  yieldings  from  Pennsylvanian  mines, 

And  by  Olympian  accumulations  outside  all  common 

rule, 

Had  made  her  consort 
To  a  pseudo-claimant  to  a  pseudo-throne 
In  one  of  Europe's  most  obscure  and  distant  corners : 
America,  land  of  Opportunity ! 
In  such  a  milieu  (or  on  its  edge), 
And  subject  most  peculiarly 
To  all  its  influences  and  its  temptations, 
Stood  Gerald  Jean  at  thirty  —  stands  to-day. 

Does  anybody  feel  like  trying 
To  finish  out  his  life-course  for  him, 
Giving  him  thirty  years  more? 
7  don't;  yet  one  may  ask  how  much  is  to  be  hoped 
For  —  or  from  —  an  article  of  purchase  and  of  sale 
'Mongst  women  all  his  elders; 
Or  may  wonder  how  much  of  comfort  or  of  joy 
He,  guarded  close  through  years  still  good, 
From  depredations  on  Hesperidian  fruits 
By  dragon  worldly-wise  and  vigilant, 
Will  ever  reach; 

Or  might  be  prompted  to  inquire 
How  much  of  manly  ambition, 
[77] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Or  how  much  urge  toward  some  real  social  service, 
Is  likely  to  survive  the  consciousness  of  the  fatal 

page 

In  that  red,  dumpy  little  tome, 
The  Almanach  de  Gotha. 

What  remains? 

An  aging  Prospero  who  waves  his  wand 

To  rule  cravats  and  socks, 

To  call  forth  exquisite  dinners, 

To  order  picnics,  far  too  elegant, 

On  rocks  or  sands 

(In  either  case  they'll  soon  be  washed  away). 

And  then,  at  sixty,  from  ladies  young  and  old, 

These  verbal  tributes: 

"How  well  he  holds  his  years!" 

"He  had  a  most  romantic  youth,  they  say!*' 

"Who  can  resist 

Such  magnetism  and  such  charm?" 

Pfuil  let's  pass  to  something  else. 


WHISPERINGS 

MISTS,  roll  aside! 
Disclose  the  girlhood  days 
Of  her,  our  pythoness, 
Celestine  Mudge. 
Sun,  shed  your  rays 
Upon  the  gifted  child 
Of  Ormuz  and  of  Ind.  — 
("Ind."  —  short  for  Indiana) ;  — 
Ormuz,  abode  of  whisperings, 
"Controls"  and  leadership, 
The  Hoosier  Domremy. 

From  sixteen  on 

Our  over-dowered  girl 

Was  subject 

To  addresses  and  solicitations 

From  out  the  empty  air. 

A  pressing  crew  surrounded  her, 

Refused  the  other  life 

For  the  concerns  of  this, 

And  showered  on  her  their  messages 

Fatuous,  malapropos,  importunate. 

The  chief  of  these, 
Professor  Pike 
(Deceased  in  'eighty-five), 
[79] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

A  kindly  and  benevolent  old  man 

Ready  with  counsel  and  fecund  of  advice, 

Would  try  to  stand  the  others  off; 

Yet  often  did  this  rabble  rout 

Break  through  his  guard  .  .  . 

Oh,  't  is  vexatious 

To  have  some  ancient  Roman 

Whisper  across  your  ironing-board, 

Or  some  lost  cousin 

Sizzle  from  the  pies 

When  cookstove  door 's  thrown  open, 

Or  Indian  chieftains 

Grunt  about  your  pillow 

In  the  dark  middle  of  the  night. 

But  all  these  things,  and  more, 

Celestine  must  endure  for  years. 

She  married;  but  her  husband  — 

Oh,  he  just  went  away. 

She  lived  along  alone  with  her  one  child. 

The  townsfolk  sniggered  as  they  passed  the  house, 

And  boys  and  girls  at  school 

Made  life  for  little  Nan  one  misery. 

Ormuz,  how  could  you! 

Visitors  came.  Yielding  to  their  demands, 
Celestine  learned  a  set  of  parlor  tricks. 
She  —  or  her  familiars  — 

Wrote  names  in  tight-closed  books  on   distant 
shelves, 

[  80] 


WHISPERINGS 

Passed  checkers  through  a  shut  backgammon  t 

board, 

And  sent  from  cones  word  of  the  long-since  dead: 
A  scanty  living,  and  a  dubious. 

And  last  came  Dora  Dale, 

Silly  and  rich  and  more  than  middle-aged; 

Not  bereft,  precisely, 

But  looking  for  an  interest. 

The  two  were  intimates  in  no  time; 

And  then,  before  so  very  long, 

The  three  of  them, 

Celestine,  Dora  and  Professor  Pike, 

Set  out  upon  the  conquest  of  the  world. 

Dora  loved  the  Professor  from  the  start; 

His  genial  wisdom  and  loquacity 

Held  her  in  thrall. 

She  saw  him  as  the  climax  of  the  ages 

And  sat  her  down  to  tell  the  world  that  fact. 

Her  book,  as  sketched,  began 
With  a  brief  glimpse  of  Brahmin  sages; 
Then  came  the  Greek  philosophers, 
Then  Rome's  wide  empire, 
Then  Augustine  in  Anglia, 
The  Reformation, 
The  Pilgrim  Fathers, 
The  Continental  Congress, 
The  Winning  of  the  West, 
f  81  1 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Old  Tippecanoe, 

And  Ormuz  on  the  Wabash, 

Professor  Pike  in  Ormuz  .  .  .  - 

You  see  the  chain. 

The  apex  of  mentality, 

The  crux  of  human  fate, 

The  reading  of  earth's  riddle, 

All  centered  and  all  settled  here  in  Ormuz, 

Yet  Ormuz  nudged  and  giggled 

And  looked  for  the  solution 

Elsewhither.  Oh! 

Know  you,  blind  village, 

That  revelations  and  phenomena 

Must  take  place  somewhere. 

Why  this  spot  any  less  than  that? 

Wisdom  is  one;  the  world  a  unit. 

Wonders  may  have  their  home  on  any  threshold 

(Or,  if  you  live  in  an  apartment, 

On  the  back  porch). 

Each  man,  each  woman,  is  a  miracle, 

The  crown,  the  cap,  the  climax  of  the  race 

(This  gives  us  all  a  chance)  — 

The  home  and  haunt  of  mystery.  .  .  . 

But  Ormuz  looked  afar: 

To  N.  Y.,  or  even  farther  yet. 

And  so  Celestine  —  do  you  wonder?  — 
Packed  up  her  things  and  made  the  great  refusal. 
She,  with  Dora  and  Professor  Pike, 
[82] 


WHISPERINGS 

Wiped  off  the  clay  of  Ormuz 

And  went  to  Indianapolis. 

Here  they  called  spirits  from  the  vasty  deep; 

Here  Dora  started  on  her  book. 

This  city  showed  more  interest, 

But  none  too  much; 

And  in  the  fall  the  three  went  East. 

Manhattan  gave  them  foothold 

And  a  small  section 

Of  its  wide,  noise-crammed  ear. 

They  listened  too  (while  finishing  the  book) : 

They  began  to  hear  from  Paris 

Of  plain  George  Mullins, 

From  Ottumwa,  Iowa, 

Who  had  rigged  up  a  cabinet, 

There  in  the  Rue  de  Seine, 

And  set  the  town  a-tingle. 

"Our  way  lies  o'er  the  sea,"  said  Dora; 

"On  to  London!" 

Celestine  now  had  gained 
Aspect  and  manners  urban, 
And  yet  had  kept 
Her  semi-rustic,  sweet  sincerity; 
And  as  for  round-eyed  little  Nan, 
She  was  an  utter  darling. 
Dora,  with  experience  and  aplomb  for  three 
(Or  four,  counting  the  Professor), 
And  purse  for  twenty, 
And  letters  to  the  social  powers 
[  83] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Of  Babylon  .  .  . 

Yes,  they  soon  made  good: 

Countesses  and  Oxford  dons 

Thronged  their  hotel  for  sittings; 

And  in  a  fortnight  they  were  quite  the  rage. 

London,  how  could  you ! 
You,  with  your  myriad  teachers,  preachers, 
Organs  and  vehicles,  — % 
I  don't  mean  street-pianos,  — 
You,  too,  must  quest  for  the  remote, 
Must  hanker  for  the  Elsewhere, 
Hone  for  the  Something-Other! 
Must  you,  too,  be  told 
That  man 's  a  wonder  in  all  places, 
That  miracles  may  crop  out  anywhere  — 
In  Goswell  Road  as  readily 
As  on  Fourth  Street  in  Ormuz? 
That  thwarted  sibyls  doubtless  dwell 
In  Shoreditch  and  in  Clapham? 
That  smothered  oracles  might  speak 
Out  through  the  smoke  of  Southwark? 
And  if  you  say  the  still  small  voice 
Shall  come  best  from  the  still  small  town, 
What  quieter  spots  than  some  that  lurk 
Within  the  heart  of  a  metropolis? 
Take,  for  example, 
A  suite  upon  the  twentieth  floor 
Of  a  well-kept  hotel  — 
Such  a  one,  in  fact,  as  our  Celestine, 
[84  ] 


WHISPERINGS 

Back  in  her  native  land,  now  occupies. 

High  above  the  mists,  close  to  the  stars, 

She  lives,  well-dressed,  well-fed,  well-thought-of, 

With  little  Nan 

At  a  nice  boarding-school  .  .  . 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 


ALONZO  GROUT 

HE  "found  himself" 

When  on  the  threshold  of  sixteen, 

While  the  townspeople 

Still  called  him  "Lonnie." 

He  jotted  down  some  lines, 

Looked  in  the  glass, 

And  saw  a  poet. 

His  first  things  were  "occasional." 

He  crowned  his  head  with  gray 

To  celebrate  a  golden  wedding; 

And  Grandma  Betts, 

Who  felt  that  she  was  even  older, 

Reached  up  and  gave  the  blushing  lad  a  kiss. 

Next  year  he  was  a  patriot  of  the  early  days, 

Hymning  the  town's  chief  glory  — 

That  fortunate  woman 

Who  had  become 

Vice-president  of  the  Colonial  Dames: 

"He  will  go  far!"  breathed  the  dry  spinster 

Who  ruled  the  public  library's  twelve  hundred  books. 

Alonzo  presently  discovered 
The  universe  of  nature  and  of  art: 
Stars,  rills,  fate,  rondeaux,  Shelley,  and  the  rest, 
Gaining  in  knack  and  subjectivity. 
[  86  1 


ALONZO  GROUT 

The  Baptist  minister  laid  his  hand 

Upon  our  hero's  shoulder; 

But  as  concerned  the  men  and  boys  in  general  — 

Well,  never  mind. 

And  thus  to  twenty-three. 

The  more  censorious  among  the  neighbors 

Now  grew  impatient: 

Lonnie,  they  felt,  —  yes,  he  was  "Lonnie"  yet,  — 

Had  shown  his  "gift"  —  and  more  than  shown  it; 

Let  him  come  down  to  life's  realities. 

In  Lonnie's  set  they  married  early 

And  put  a  firm  young  shoulder  to  the  wheel. 

However,  Alonzo  Grout  chose  his  own  course: 

He  made  a  volume, 

Sought  the  market, 

And  stood  a  published  poet. 

Then  "general  literary  work" 

Took  him  to  town 

And  steadied  him  the  while  he  served 

As  page,  as  acolyte,  as  Ganymede 

(He  felt  himself  ail  three) 

Unto  the  Muse. 

He  tried  all  forms, 

From  sonnet  to  chant-royal. 

He  did  a  tragedy  — 

Oh,  it  out-Cenci'd  Cenci! 

And  he  did  masques  — 

Things  more  Jacobean 

[87] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Than  James  himself  (James  First), 

Or  Jonson,  either. 

He  even  printed  in  the  magazines ! 

And  so  he  single-footed  it  along, 

Luxuriating  in  his  Self 

And  in  his  self-expression. 

The  reading  public, 

Comprising  about  three  hundred  and  seventy-five 

people,  several  critics  included, 
Cried,  "A  wonder!" 

Thus  for  some  seasons  — 

Increasing  "output"  and  increasing  fame; 

Clubs  of  a  special  kind  enrolled  him; 

He  read,  and  rather  widely,  his  own  verse. 

And  then,  within  the  limits  of  a  year, 

His  vein  pinched  out. 

Pick  as  he  might,  no  ore  shone  to  his  view; 

And  so  — 

One  day  he  shut  up  his  Sahara-desk 
And  took  the  trolley  to  a  suburb, 
Where  he  was  minded  to  consult 
An  eminent  specialist,  so  to  speak: 
A  man  whose  blood  showed  various  mingled  strains 
And  who  had  penned,  in  more  languages  than  one, 
Many  conspicuous  things  in  prose  and  verse; 
And  everybody  said  of  him 
That  he  was  kind  to  "younger  men." 
f  88  1 


ALONZO  GROUT 

He  rose  from  his  indefatigable  machine 

And  looked  Alonzo  over  with  a  friendly  care. 

"Are  you  American?"  he  asked. 

"On  both  sides,  yes,"  Alonzo  proudly  said  — 

"For  generations." 

The  sage  and  genius  sadly  shook  his  head. 

"My  boy, 

I  fear  your  case  is  hopeless. 

Like  others  of  your  blood, 

You  have  mistaken: 

You  thought  yourself  a  spring,  when  but  a  tank. 

You  Ve  dipped  yourself  quite  empty, 

And  there's  no  source"  — 

He  gave  the  word  a  Gallic  twist  — 

"To  feed  you  and  replenish." 

Then  he  spoke  at  length 

Of  the  native  mind  and  soul  — 

Its  soil  and  its  topography: 

A  watershed  without  the  proper  pitch; 

A  soil  light,  shallow,  friable, 

Fit  for  sparse  shrubs,  perhaps, 

But  not  for  secular  oaks; 

No  deep  and  cavernous  reservoirs, 

Spring-fed, 

From  which  great  streams  might  issue; 

Scant  descent 

Of  certain  blessed  dews  of  heaven 

Through  an  arid  atmosphere 

Upon  an  earth  too  lean. 

[89] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

From  our  native  stock 

He  looked  for  little, 

In  any  of  the  arts. 

The  great  things,  he  believed, 

Were  to  be  wrought  by  other,  newer  blood. 

He  walked  with  our  poor  boy  to  the  front  door. 

"Have  you  tried  —  essays?" 

Alonzo  glowered  and  made  his  get-away. 

So,  then!  Up  in  the  air  at  thirty-three! 

I  am  not  one  to  say 

That  anybody's  life  — 

No  matter  how  mistakenly  begun 

Or  how  mistakenly  conducted  — 

Is  finished  by  that  date; 

Not  at  all.  By  no  means.  Point  du  tout. 

But  —  for  an  artist!  Well,  it's  serious. 

Alonzo  could  not  leave  the  life. 

Even  the  printing  part  of  it  — 

Galleys  and  formats,  eight-point  and  flubdubs, 

The  very  smell  of  ink  — 

Entranced  him. 

If  he  might  no  longer 

Wield  poet's  pen, 

He  could  at  least  proof-read 

Verse  writ  by  others  — 

And  do  it  well: 

For  the  fine  frenzy 

f  90  1 


ALONZO  GROUT 

Often  took  but  little  heed 

Of  indentations  and  of  semicolons  — 

Or  even  of  spelling. 

Thus  he  faced  the  situation 

And  set  his  feet  upon  the  lesser  way. 

It  was  still  possible 

To  live  vicarious  raptures  — 

Putting  delight  in  dashes, 

Passion  within  parentheses, 

And  reels  of  dubiousness  in  rows  of  dots, 

Like  this: 

Thus  he  laid  hands  on  his  new  task: 

Greeting  the  bright  young  foreigners 

He  could  not  rival,  and  hoping 

(Against  hope,  sometimes) 

That  they  would  sing  no  less  decorously  than  he, 

Nor  chant  with  voice  too  strident 

Their  rowdy  rhythms  for  a  rowdy  day; 

Living  at  second-hand  in  fonts  of  type; 

Drudging  enthusiastically 

That  other  souls  might  scintillate; 

Doing  his  simple  tricks,  poor  Jongleur, 

Before  Our  Lady's  shrine; 

And  scarce  suspecting 

Behind  the  future's  veil 

The  sad,  repellent  days 

That  were  to  bring 

(And  bring  so  soon) 

Vers  libre. 


VICTORY 

SHE  was  jilted!  The  whole  little  town 
Was  smiling  and  wagging  its  tongue 
Over  her ! 

In  her  own  narrow  world 
She  had  queened  it  for  years, 
With  hot  temper,  proud  heart,  and  high  hand. 
And  to-day! 
In  the  eyes  of  them  all 
She  was  humbled,  dethroned. 

How  they  flocked,  how  they  gibed  her,  to  even  old 
scores ! 

All  her  being,  outraged  and  inflamed, 

Felt  one  need,  one  alone: 

She  must  marry,  and  that  without  wait; 

And  her  husband  must  be 

One  more  rich,  and  more  comely,  more  highly- 
considered 

Than  he  who  had  left  her. 

She  was  wedded  —  a  whirlwind !  —  in  less  than  a 
fortnight; 

Then,  panting  and  dazed, 

She  steadied  herself  in  the  doorway  of  marriage 

To  ask  where  she  stood. 

In  a  sense  she  had  won; 
She  had  snatched  from  disgrace 
[92] 


VICTORY 

A  magnificent  triumph  — 

If  you  scanned  it  not  closely. 

He   was    handsome    and    popular,    wealthy    and 

young. 

In  the  choice  of  a  wife  he  had  had  his  full  chance: 
In  his  day  he  himself  had  been  called 
A  sad  flirt  and  a  jilt. 

Shall  I  brighten  his  splendor  by  adding  to  this 
That  his  father  was  rated  the  town's  leading  banker? 
You're  impressed,  I  can  see. 
(There  was  only  one  other.) 

Now,  the  son  of  a  town's  leading  banker 
Is  likely  as  not,  if  he  lingers  at  home, 
To  be  far  from  a  pattern  of  grace; 
And  Victoria  Drake  (yes,  I  '11  give  her  a  name) 
Was  not  long  on  her  way  to  discover  this  fact. 
All  his  faults  —  and  he  had  them  in  scores  — 
Rather  grew  than  diminished; 
And  their  chief  and  their  climax  was  this: 
He  felt  that  he  'd  done  her  a  favor.  He  had. 
Hence  a  margin  for  stragglings  and  strollings  out 
side  — 

He  began  to  philander,  to  roam. 
There 's  no  need  for  a  close  resume 
Of  numbers  and  ages  and  names. 
There  was  smoke.  As  for  fire, 
It  was  not  to  be  clearly  detected. 
But  a  certain  proud  heart  and  imperious  temper 
Took  counsel  of  silence  and  learned  self-control. 
[  93  1 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

In  the  course  of  some  years  —  four  or  five  — 

The  head  of  that  bank  passed  away,  and  the  son 

Had  his  freedom  —  to  show  his  own  hand 

And  to  pick  his  own  paths. 

For  the  first  time  in  life  he  was  now  in  the  lead, 

With  no  other  to  counsel  and  guide. 

His  success  was  but  fair;  he'd  been  leaning  too  long. 

" Take  in  sail!"  — 

Was  the  word,  for  the  home,  from  a  helmsman 

unskilled; 

And  a  certain  high  heart  and  a  certain  high  hand 
Made  a  drop  to  a  commoner  level. 

She  was  thirty  and  more. 

In  her  bosom  there  burned  all  the  earlier  fire  — 

All  its  pride,  all  its  power,  all  its  scorn, 

And  a  temper  to  wither  and  sear. 

But  this  fierce  flame  of  life  — 

To  what  use  should  she  put  it? 

All  this  energy,  hot  and  intense  — 

On  what  object  bestow  it? 

No  pride  in  her  husband;  no  pride  in  her  home. 

And  her  children,  poor  flock, 

Into  plain  little  dullards  they  threatened  to  grow. 

All  her  world  seemed  to  droop,  to  collapse :  must  that 

be? 

She  cried  out  for  esteem,  for  regard,  for  success. 
These  must  come;  she  must  bring  them. 
For  herself,  for  her  home, 
For  her  family  circle,  her  place  in  the  town, 
[94] 


VICTORY 

For  her  husband,  poor  weakling  and  stray, 

She  would  conquer  respect. 

A  ^volcano  for  rage  and  for  anger,  for  fire  and  for 

heat, 

She  would  make  herself  into  a  hearthstone  of  cheer  — 
A  center  of  comfort  and  good  and  well-being 
For  one  and  for  all: 

No  mountain  of  pride  and  of  wrath,  hurling  forth 
Hot  ashes  and  lava  to  burn  and  to  blight; 
But  a  well-beloved  chimney,  whose  plumed  smoke 

and  sparks 

Should  assemble  and  group  round  the  fireplace  below 
All  the  best  within  reach. 

She  would  focus  just  there  the  full  worth  of  the  town; 
She  would  benefit  others  and  profit  herself. 
She  would  send  up  a  cloud  of  good  deeds  and  good 

cheer, 

Gain  respect  as  a  wife  and  success  as  a  mother. 
Those  dullards,  all  four  — 
In  the  end  they  should  yield  her  both  credit  and  joy. 

In  the  course  of  the  years  her  daughters  and  sons, 
Who  had  met  her  ideals,  fulfilled  her  desires, 
Made  homes  for  themselves, 

And  they  left  her,  as  young  ones  have  done  oft  before, 
With    regrets    not    undue,    nor    too    lasting.     Her 

husband, 

Now  slothful  and  dim  (his  best  days  had  come  first), 
Attained  to  decorum  if  not  to  esteem; 
But  he  never  reached  any  true  sense  of  her  worth, 
f  95  1 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Though  't  was  felt,  should  she  die,  he  would  marry 

too  soon, 
He  enjoyed,  on  the  whole,  the  respect  of  the  town. 

She  was  now  "Grandma"  Drake, 

The  town's  focus  and  hub, 

The  column,  the  prop,  the  mainstay  of  all. 

The  community's  interests  centered  in  her, 

As  adviser  and  friend  of  both  greater  and  less. 

She  welcomed  new  babies,  her  grandsons  included, 

And  half  the  girl-babies  were  christened  Victoria. 

On  her  fast-graying  temples  her  triumph  shone  clear; 

From  her  eyes,  dark  and  vivid,  her  victory  flashed. 

Yes,  she  gained  her  reward. 

How  would  you,  sir  or  madam,  take  yours? 

In  a  small  daily  dribble  of  comfort  and  pleasure, 

Or  all  in  one  sum,  great  and  noble  and  fine, 

Well  along  toward  the  end? 

Choose  your  plan;  pick  your  size. 


INTERLUDE 

(FoR  PREPAREDNESS — JUNE,  1916) 

WHEN  he  was  eight  years  old, 

His  father,  whom  he  had  almost  forgot, 

Came  back, 

Hung  up  a  dusty  cap  and  battered  sword 

Upon  the  best-room's  wall 

And,  after  three  long  years, 

Resumed  the  daily  round  of  peace. 

When  he  was  sixty-two  or  so, 

War  loomed  again. 

With  late,  dull  eyes  he  visioned  it 

Plunging  across  the  sea, 

Stalking  through  city  streets, 

And  desecrating  homes 

In  town  and  country  both. 

Half  a  century  of  peace 
And  of  prosperity 
Closed  with  a  thunderclap: 
His  half-century, 
His  interlude. 

When  has  this  poor,  racked  world 
Seen  just  its  like? 
For  a  whole  people 
Remote,  secure,  heedless,  and  busy, 
[07] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

The  fond,  the  foolish  days  moved  on, 
And  no  one  seemed  to  understand 
How  little,  or  how  much,  they  meant. 

Through  all  this  time 

The  great  world  roundabout 

Had  heaved  and  swelled, 

A  sad,  uneasy  flood; 

And  now  and  then  some  small  spent  wave 

Came  hitherward. 

Asia,  a  third  world,  slept  indeed, 

Locked  up  in  her  unreckoned  chamber; 

But,  toward  the  east,  kings  troubled  somewhat  — 

And  somewhat  entertained: 

That  is,  vexed  one  another  and  their  own, 

And  interested  us,  if  slightly. 

"They're  lasting  still,"  we  said. 

"How  weak  and  foolish  are  those  Old- World  ways; 

We  are  better  here." 

Our  boy's  own  little  world  — 

If  world  you  '11  call  it  — 

Lay  open  wide, 

Divinely  young  and  simple, 

With  candid  opportunity  for  all: 

No  crowd,  no  fierce  competing,  and  no  tyranny. 

Suicide  was  rare;  child-suicide  unheard-of; 

And  if  the  fair  occasion  failed  at  home, 

Hope  ever  beckoned 

From  wider,  richer  realms  beyond. 


INTERLUDE 

Our  boy  at  fourteen  made  his  start  in  life 

Under  a  friend  of  his  own  father; 

No  horde  of  banded  foreigners  opposed. 

His  work  got  welcome  and  reward: 

A  daily  wage  small,  true, 

Yet  fit  for  daily  needs,  enough  for  self-respect. 

Later,  on  manhood's  verge, 

He  moved  along 

Toward  the  grand  new  spaces  of  the  West. 

Here  success,  prosperity, 

Came  almost  unsolicited. 

Nothing  too  good  for  him: 

He  took  the  best  for  granted. 

Sometimes,  wafted  across  from  wornout  lands, 

Came  distant  echoings  that  seemed  to  tell 

Of  poverty  and  hardship  and  oppression. 

The  victims,  too,  began  to  come, 

In  numbers  less  or  greater. 

"They'll  be  better  here,"  he  negligently  said. 

"But  why,"  he  asked,  incredulous, 

"  Should  any  one  who  really  deserves 

Be  poor  or  suffer  in  a  world  like  ours?" 

At  thirty-five  he  had  a  fortune, 
And  doubled  back  to  make  it  greater. 
A  vast  new  wilderness  had  been  exploited; 
Cities  had  been  reared 
In  ugliness  and  in  corruption. 
[99] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

But  the  corrupt  and  hideous 

Were  little  to  his  sense  — 

Mere  incidentals. 

They  would  pass;  if  not, 

They  counted  with  a  force  but  slight 

Against  the  general  gain. 

A  great  people  must  be  allowed 

Its  minor  faults  —  spots  on  the  sun. 

Ten  years  later  — 

Various  other  fortunes  lost  and  won  — 

He  took  his  family  abroad. 

With  smiling  tolerance 

He  saw  the  pomp  of  kings, 

And  with  pleased  interest 

The  paradings  of  their  armies. 

The  world  of  Europe 

Was  but  a  stage  decor. 

"How  it  must  cost!"  he  said. 

"Well,  let  it! 

So  much  the  worse  for  them. 

And  so  much  the  better"  — 

He  spoke  prophetically  — 

"For  us." 

And  in  the  Orient 
He  condescended  to  be  pleased 
With  curios  from  Peking, 
And  with  the  charming  life,  in  miniature, 
Of  Nippon.  He  brought  home 
[  100  ] 


INTERLUDE: 


Lacquers  and  prints  from  Tokio, 

And  friends  applauded  his  exotic  tastes. 

These  people  of  the  East. 

He'd  met  already  in  our  own  new  West. 

There,  they  seemed  misplaced, 

And  possibly  too  numerous. 

Here,  in  their  proper  setting, 

They  were  "so  dear,"  his  daughters  said. 

"Smart  little  beggars!"  he  himself  observed. 

When  he  was  nearing  sixty, 

That  outside  world  (on  either  side), 

That  spectacle,  that  double  pleasure-ground, 

That  thing  apart, 

Heaved  in  a  general  agony. 

He,  barricaded  'midst  his  stocks  and  bonds, 

Felt  inconvenience,  then  annoyance, 

Then  almost  distress, 

Until  he  found  a  way, 

Aided  by  those  who  would  be  "  better  here," 

To  put  dread  weapons  into  warring  hands 

And  profit  into  his  own  pockets. 

This  reconciled  him,  in  a  measure, 

To  all  the  folly,  passion,  and  imprudence 

Upon  the  outskirts. 

Rich  himself, 

He  was  impatient  with  the  needy; 
Self -controlled, 

He  scorned  the  rash  and  reckless. 
[  101  ] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

But  the  big  world  was  poor  and  mad. 

It  looked  about  with  hungry,  angry  eyes, 

And  saw  our  friend  so  rich  and  so  unguarded; 

It  taxed  him,  too,  with  his  offense. 

He  remained  almost  indifferent  — 

Self-confidence  had  been  so  long  his  normal  state; 

And  cleverness,  garnered  from  a  varied  experience 

In  new  environments,  had  bred 

A  ready  knack  and  gumption,  equal  quite 

To  any  labored,  plodding,  trained  efficiency. 

It  was  still  inconceivable 

That  the  thrice-holy  ritual 

Of  dollar-snatching 

Should  suffer  serious  check  — 

We  were  a  business  people. 

And  yet  the  break  was  here; 

The  flood  had  come  upon  him. 

His  happy,  busy,  prosperous  life 

Felt  a  sad  jar 

As  rude,  contemptuous  hands 

Seized  on  its  big,  frail  frame 

And  swept  across  its  strings  in  discord.  .  .  . 

Fifty-odd  years  of  poor  provinciality, 

Lived  by  one  who  had  assumed  himself  to  be 

(Through  confidence  —  and  through  self-confidence 

—  misplaced) 

Close  to  the  great  world's  hub  and  center, 
Yet  safe  from  its  alarums. 

(  102] 


INTERLUDE 

In  truth, 

Is  not  mere  money-getting  but  a  special  gift 

Of  an  inferior  order? 

The  world  has  other  gifts,  and  other  needs  — 

And  other  elements  more  vital  and  diverse, 

To  raise  themselves  and  dominate  our  friend 

And  his  poor  fortune. 


THE  STATUE 

THE  wedded  life 

Of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Harvey  D.  Mason 

Was  ideal  — 

Had  been  for  thirty  years. 

Everybody  said  so, 

And  everybody  was  right. 

The  home  life 

Of  the  Jackson-Hurds 

Was  perfect,  too  — 

Had  been  for  thirty  years  and  five. 

Everybody  said  so, 

And  everybody  was  right. 

Yet  Misery  may  issue 

From  the  graceful  loins  of  Perfection. 

I  say  so, 

And  I  am  right. 

Shall  our  protagonist  be  Ella  Mason, 

Aged  twenty-two, 

Or  Roland  Hurd, 

Aged  twenty-six? 

I  may  give  each  a  chance; 

But,  for  the  present, 

Place  aux  dames. 

To  Ella,  simple  maid, 

As  to  the  twenty  thousand  good  folk  of  the  town, 
[  104  1 


THE  STATUE 

The  wedded  years 

Of  her  thrice-worthy  parents 

Spoke  the  last  word  for  pure  Monogamy; 

Nor  were  the  Kurds  so  far  behind. 

Before  the  whole  community 

These  couples  twain 

Reared  jointly  in  the  public  square 

The  towering  statue  of  a  grand  Ideal, 

Built  in  enduring  bronze. 

Lettered  on  its  inexorable  base 

Stood  forth  these  words : 

"One  flesh,  one  spirit." 

The  giant  figure,  like  a  newer  Moloch, 

Held  forth  its  arms,  as  if  to  say: 

"  Offer  your  children  here, 

And  see  what  happens." 

What  one  good  pair  (or  two)  have  done, 

This  model  monster  said, 

The  whole  wide  world 

Can  do,  and  must,  and  shall. 

"Yea!"  cried  the  echoing  public. 

Yet  if  it's  all  so  simple  and  so  common, 

Why  lay  such  stress  and  lavish  so  much  praise 

On  that  which  is  confessed  to  be 

The  glittering  exception? 

Our  heroine  felt  sure  that  she, 
The  child  of  such  progenitors, 
And  Roland,  scion  of  a  family 
f  105  1 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

No  less  correct, 

Would  meet  triumphantly,  with  utter  ease, 
The  Statue's  most  exact  demands. 
Why  not,  with  such  examples  set 
Before  their  youthful  eyes? 

Roland  had  told  her  (no  unusual  gambit) 
T  was  her  fair  face  had  drawn  him. 
She,  in  response,  had  smiled  and  bridled; 
And  thus  the  game  was  on.   And  yet  .  .  . 
Does  beauty  grow  with  the  increasing  years? 
Not  often. 

Do  spiritual  graces  come  to  take  the  place 
Of  graces  merely  fleshly? 
Not  always. 

Will  even  use-and-wont  control  the  helm 
When  other  things  are  lacking? 
Not  inevitably. 

And  yet,  before  the  game  had  far  advanced, 
Ella  had  said  to  Roland  (and  herself), 
In  substance,  if  not  in  measured  syllables: 
"  /  will  be  your  life's  banquet  — 
Your  feast  from  start  to  finish : 
Hors-d'oeuvres,  potage, 
Poisson,  entree  ..." 
And  so  on,  down  — 
Down  to  the  last  sip  of  coffee, 
To  the  last  crumb  of  cheese. 
Consider,  friends. 
Think  what  it  means  to  say: 
[  106  I 


THE  STATUE 

"I  only,  I  alone,  shall  suffice  for  sustenance, 
For  entertainment  and  for  comfort 
Through  all  your  years  of  life!" 
What  shall  we  call  the  mental  state 
That  puts  forth  such  colossal  claim? 
Fatuity,  naivete,  conceit, 
Self-confidence  and  self-complacency, 
All  five  raised  to  the  ntb  degree? 
Yet  such  was  Ella's  stand. 

Roland  bowed  before  the  Statue 

And  undertook  the  ritual, 

Though  with  certain  doubts. 

Child  of  the  newer  day, 

The  richer  life, 

No  great  time  elapsed 

Before  he  looked  upon  the  brazen  god 

And  almost  shuddered. 

"One  flesh,  one  spirit!" 

He  felt  himself  to  be  —  himself, 

Reluctant  and  recalcitrant  to  fuse. 

And  as  time  went  on 

He  found  that,  in  good  truth, 

He  had  a  fickle  palate, 

And  that  his  eyes, 

Those  of  a  roving  aesthete, 

Would  feed  with  relish 

On  all  the  beauties  of  the  world. 

He  had  his  business  and  his  business  cares; 
He  had  his  home  —  a  better,  it  may  be, 
[  107  ] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Than  he  deserved; 

He  had  his  children,  and  was  in  several  ways 

A  satisfactory  parent;  yet  — 

Man's  still  imperfectly  monogamous, 

And  he  was  very  man. 

I  shall  not  tell  much  more. 

Ella  was  doubtless  limited 

(Yes,  ladies,  many  of  you  are) : 

No  flowing  fount  of  rich  variety. 

Life's  friction  fretted  her, 

And  the  fret  showed  in  face  and  temper. 

Some  other  face,  or  faces, 

Kept,  perhaps,  more  fair; 

And  other  tempers,  it  may  be, 

Were  found  more  soothing. 

We  may  surmise  some  years 

Of  bickering,  suspicion, 

Protest,  indignation. 

Harvey  D.  Mason  may  have  shown  his  ire, 

And  even  have  led  his  daughter  into  court. 

A  thousand  tongues  may  well  have  wagged  to  say: 

"What!  this  from  L.  T.  Jackson-Hurd's  own  son!" 

All  that  I  know  for  certainty  is  here : 

That  once,  and  more  than  once, 
Roland  J.  Hurd,  in  dead  of  night, 
Went  to  the  public  square 
And  cursed  the  Statue  — 
Yes,  he  cursed  it  roundly. 

[  108  ] 


THE  STATUE 

And  as  he  cursed 

He  thought  of  a  more  liberal  life. 

In  his  brain,  if  not  upon  his  lips, 

Were  justifying  analogues 

From  human  life  in  other  lands, 

And  even  from  dumb  nature. 

He  saw  the  Moslem  world, 

Approving  Turk  and  Arab. 

Cock-crow  brought  him  another  argument, 

With  images  of  docile  and  adoring  hens. 

He  even  may  have  thought  of  Utah. 

Still  young,  and  eager  and  appreciative, 

He  shook  his  fist  at  the  bronze  figure,  crying: 

"Must  each  and  all  invariably  conform? 

Because  one  marriage  in  a  hundred 

Reaches  and  realizes  the  high  ideal  set, 

Must  nine  and  ninety  more 

Strive  to  come  square  with  the  Impossible, 

And  lapse  away  to  failure  and  distress?" 

He  spoke  at  length,  and  with  great  fluency.  But 

"Peace,"  said  the  Statue; 
"Peace  —  and  patience. 
I  'm  but  the  working-rule  of  By-and-Large, 
The  loose-geared  law  of  the  Approximate. 
I  cannot  give  detailed  regard 
To  every  individual  case. 
You  demand  too  much. 
A  man  like  you  might  even  ask 
[  109  J 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

In  this  our  world 

For  Justice  or  Content ! 

You  are  not  here  for  pleasure, 

But  for  discipline. 

Do  the  best  you  can; 

Time 's  on  your  side. 

Reward  —  if  you  succeed  — 

Is  elsewhere,  possibly. 

Go.   Go  home." 


THE  "ART  OF  LIFE" 

BEFORE  Horace  Tripp  had  been  married 

A  year  and  a  half 

He  began  to  suspect 

That  the  "art  of  life"- 

As  he  handsomely  called  it  — 

Was  rather  beyond  his  technique; 

His  powers  in  sleight-of-hand 

Were  slight  indeed. 

Too  many  balls  to  keep  in  the  air: 

His  wife,  his  baby,  his  grocer, 

His  landlord,  his  publisher, 

His  friends  and  enemies, 

And  all  the  rest  of  them. 

He  made  many  a  sad  slip, 

And  came  to  feel  petulantly 

That  perhaps  he  was  more  or  less 

A  dub. 

So  he  bent  himself  over  his  desk 

All  the  harder. 

If  he  could  not  coordinate  and  control 

The  various  people  who  made  up 

The  elements  of  his  daily  existence, 

All  the  more  would  he  take  a  high  hand 

[  in  i 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

With  the  brain-folk 

Who  peopled  his  books. 

These  had  to  behave  — 

Had  to  do  as  he  wanted. 

Sometimes  they  dashed  through  adventures, 

Calamities  and  contortions 

In  kingdoms  remote  and  imaginary; 

Sometimes  they  grubbed  in  the  slums; 

Again,  they  were  clever  and  elegant  criminals 

In  "society"  —  whatever  the  mode  of  the  hour. 

But,  anyhow, 

All  jumped  through  the  hoop, 

At  his  lightest  command; 

And  each  work  came  out  in  the  end 

Just  as  the  author  had  planned  it,  — 

No  bit  in  the  teeth,  and  no  balking. 

'T  is  the  weak  man,  of  course, 

Who  makes  the  best  tyrant; 

And  Horace  was  ruthless. 

Soon  he  came  to  look  on  himself 

As  a  species  of  minor  creator, 

Grandiose  and  omnipotent, 

In  a  world  of  his  own. 

It  was  not,  however,  the  world 
With  which  one  perforce 
Has  everyday  dealings. 
Things  listed  and  twisted. 
His  publisher  carped  — 
Returns  for  them  both  became  meager; 
[  112] 


THE  "ART  OF  LIFE" 

And  his  father-in-law 

Began  to  scowl  his  reproaches; 

And  all  the  next  summer 

Bettina,  with  little  indifferent  Wilfrid, 

Spent  at  her  parents'  cool  cottage 

High  in  the  pine  woods  of  Michigan, 

While  Horace,  left  quite  behind, 

Just  boarded.   Next  year 

He  gave  up  a  flat;  — 

The  butcher  had  shown  some  impatience; 

His  wife  was  now  dressed  by  her  mother; 

Pew-rent  and  club-dues  were  far  in  arrears; 

So  the  three  went  to  live 

Under  the  roof  and  the  eyes  of  the  elders, 

Who  looked  with  great  coldness 

On  what  they  called  "scribbling," 

And  begged  him  to  drop  it 

For  something  more  useful  — 

And  profitable. 

But  Horace,  he  said,  was  an  "artist." 
Trained  to  his  one  line  of  work, 
Stubborn  and  proud, 
He  declared  that  a  man 
Who  could  scheme  an  elaborate  novel, 
Shape  it,  slew  it  around, 
And  push  it  through  to  a  suitable  climax, 
Was  a  deal  of  a  chap,  after  all. 
He  heartily  scorned 
Those  "real-estate  operations" 
[  113] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

On  commissions  from  which 

He  and  Bettina  and  Wilfrid 

Were  now  kept  a-going. 

What  need  to  put  art  into  one's  daily  life 

And  its  manifold  problems? 

No;  he  would  place  it  high  and  dry 

In  vacuOy 

In  a  row  of  symmetrical,  well-finished  novels, 

Set  in  due  order  on  the  towering  Shelves 

Of  Immortality. 

Another  lean  year.   His  writings 
Seemed  to  fall  in  with  the  whims  of  the  day 
Less  than  ever. 
He  was  a  humbug;  the  public, 
Not  knowing  the  fact,  and  yet  feeling  it  some 
how, 

Gave  him  the  go-by. 
Bettina  now  added  her  prayers 
To  her  parents'  reproaches, 
And  Horace,  a  martyr, 
"Gave  up  literature"  —  in  a  measure. 
Drugging  his  deadly  aversion 
To  business, 
He  found  him  a  place 
With  his  publisher,  — 
Yes,  with  his  own; 
For  he  had  knack  of  a  kind 
That  gave  him  a  limited  value 
In  certain  practical  fields : 
[  114] 


THE   "ART  OF  LIFE" 

He  could  proof-read  and  edit. 
He  became,  then,  a  salaried  cog 
In  a  big  and  a  busy  machine. 

His  new  chief  had  begun 

As  a  publisher  of  wall-paper, 

Uttering  fields,  friezes  and  dadoes. 

Next  he  had  added  stationery; 

Next,  books  and  periodicals; 

And  now  he  was  bringing  out  sparsely,  each 

season, 

Volumes  of  prose  and  of  verse 
In  numbers  sufficient 
To  gild  and  to  dignify 
What  choice  ones  called  "trade." 

Horace,  at  first,  was  quite  lofty, 
And  often  said,  "Pooh!" 
But  he  had,  after  all, 
Some  slight  inklings  of  sense; 
And  before  his  first  year  was  over 
He  hummed  in  a  different  measure. ? 
He  now  saw  "the  business" 
As  a  great  feat 

Of  imagination  and  technique, 
A  towering,  well-knit  structure 
Of  many  fine  cantos; 
And  Theophilus  M.  Decker 
As  a  high  creative  spirit, 
Strong  and  compelling: 
[  115  ] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

A  man  of  mark,  of  poise,  and  of  breadth; 

Prompt  and  able  in  all  his  relations; 

A  prestidigitator 

Of  twenty  times  poor  Horace's  own  power; 

Deft  at  home  with  his  wife  and  his  family, 

Agile  and  stout  'gainst  his  fellow-paladins, 

Dextrous  indeed  with  his  hundreds  of  helpers, 

Prompt  with  his  royalties, 

A  pillar  of  the  church, 

A  stanch  column  in  the  politics  of  his  ward, 

Keen  and  wary  with  the  assessor, 

And  annually  gathering  in, 

Despite  difficulties  and  competition, 

Sixteen  or  eighteen  per  cent 

For  self,  family,  and  the  clan  of  the  "house"; 

Doing  it  easily,  lightly, 

And  jocularly.  .  .  . 

"He's  a  magician!"  cried  Horace, 

Elate  with  a  promised  promotion; 

"Yea,  he's  an  Artist!" 

Horace  advanced. 
His  wife  can  dress  in  high  feather 
From  husband's  own  purse; 
Her  father  smiles  on  him  at  last, 
And  little  Wilfrid  and  Imogene 
Are  allowed  to  respect 
Their  immediate  progenitor. 
Horace  now  sits  at  a  roller-top, 
Twiddling  his  thumbs 

(  116  ] 


THE   "ART  OF  LIFE" 

And  knitting  his  brows  at  young  authors 
Who,  flighty  and  over-  "artistic," 
Might,  with  a  few  slight  concessions, 
Do  better, 

Both  for  the  "house"  and  themselves, 
If  only  .  .  . 


THE  ALIEN 

As  a  child, 

In  her  own  native  town, 

She  played  amidst  — 

But  you,  complaisant  reader, 

Shall  set  the  scene  quite  as  you  choose. 

Make  her  loved  region 

Plainland  or  mountain,  at  your  wish; 

And  her  natal  place 

A  close-built  town  of  stuccoed  fronts 

With  a  baroque-fa^aded  church  for  the  dull  priest, 

Crushed  down  by  a  deep  pediment; 

Or  let  the  church  soar  up  in  bulbous  spires, 

From  many  loose,  disheveled  shacks  of  wood. 

(In  either  case,  make  nothing  of  the  school.) 

And  let  an  unbridged  river  mope  through  wide 

marshes, 

Or  dash  in  headlong  flight 
Over  a  broad,  sandy  bottom  to  the  sea. 
Let  there  be  many  unwilling  soldiers, 
To  cow  their  brothers  of  the  streets  and  fields; 
And  tyrannous  officials  in  abundant  measure, 
Who  draw  their  sanction  from  some  distant  capital  — 
Or  act  without  it; 
And  let  there  be  a  few  stout  hearts, 
Impelled  by  hope,  or  misery,  or  courage, 
f  118  1 


THE  ALIEN 

Or  all  three, 

To  venture  toward  the  other  world. 

She  crossed  at  ten; 

And  after  many  days  they  showed  her, 

Through  a  far-shimmering,  watery  haze, 

A  towering,  iron-spiked  head, 

And  told  her  she  was  free. 

Free  in  the  close-built  streets  of  a  tight-packed  city; 
Free  in  the  swirling  tide  of  the  lately-come  and  the 

about-to-come; 

Free  to  trip  or  trudge  behind  a  push-cart 
Through  clattering  ways;  or,  later, 
To  mouse  beneath  a  counter 
On  which  were  heaped  coarse  gloves  and  shirts  and 

shoes  — 

Or,  an  it  please  you  better, 
Strange  cheeses  and  odd  fruits  or  vegetables 
Plaited  in  strings  or  netted  in  festoons. 
And  through  it  all  —  this  newness  — 
One's  own  dear  tongue,  one's  old  home  ways. 

After  a  time,  courted  in  the  hurly-burly 
By  one  from  her  own  province; 
Then  another  shop,  better  and  bigger, 
With  their  own  infants  playing  on  the  floor, 
Or  chancing  fate  outside; 
And  one  of  these,  a  son, 
Destined  to  be  the  family's  morning-star  — 
[  119] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Nay,  its  bright  sun  in  the  new  heaven; 

The  brightest  boy  in  school  — 

That  school  where  this  strange  people 

Offered  —  and  compelled  —  instruction  free. 

Then,  after  some  brief  years, 

Through  which  he  sharpened  up  his  wits 

On  theory  and  practice, 

He  took  his  father's  petty  shop  and  juggled  it. 

It  grew  within  his  hands,  beneath  their  eyes, 

To  proportions  quite  unprecedented. 

He  walked  the  shining  road  of  quick  success, 

Skipping  from  peak  to  peak. 

At  thirty -five 

He  labored  in  one  palace,  lived  in  another, 

And  hundreds  from  his  mother's  country, 

And  other  hundreds  of  abject  natives, 

Slaved  for  his  further  good. 

Soon  her  grandsons  were  sporting  familiarly 
Through  picture-gallery  or  ballroom, 
And  harrying  costly  furniture, 
Jacobean,  Louis  Seize  or  Empire  — 
It  changed  with  passing  seasons  ~— 
In  childish  games. 

There  were  dinners,  stately  showy  things, 
From  which  she  was  discreetly  absent. 
There  were  receptions,  with  music,  let  us  say, 
At  which  she  would  appear  briefly 
In  distant  doorways, 

Blinking  dark,  narrow  eyes  at  the  incredible  scene, 
{  120  ] 


THE  ALIEN 

And  then  retiring. 

It  was  a  strange,  strange  world  — 

A  world  apart  from  her, 

And  she  apart  from  it. 

She  stumbled  through  its  purlieus 

(Gorgeous  they  seemed), 

And  stammered  through  its  language 

(One  she  had  never  rightly  learned  to  speak). 

In  her  retired  bedroom 

She  gossiped  with  a  few  old  cronies 

Of  origin  like  hers, 

And  shyly  entertained  her  grandchildren, 

When  they  would  permit. 

On  certain  designated  days 

Women,  from  somewhere, 

Went  by,  to  somewhere, 

On  public  business  —  to  "vote,"  she  heard  it  said: 

A  thing  repellent  and  incredible. 

Other  things,  no  less  repellent  and  incredible 

Were  printed  in  the  papers,  she  was  told; 

But  these  she  never  read. 

In  due  course  her  grandsons 

Turned  lawyers,  doctors,  "business  men," 

With  weapons  of  offense  and  of  defense 

Unknown  throughout  her  clan  in  earlier  days. 

More  than  ever  was  she  safeguarded  and  entrenched 

In  this  remote  and  alien  world. 


121 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

A  great  war  came. 

The  quarrel  had  two  sides,  she  heard. 

How  two? 

Her  heart,  forgetful  quite  of  old  injustices, 

Was  with  the  land  where  stood  the  little  town, 

On  mountain-stream  or  plain, 

Which  once  had  been  her  home, 

The  spot  of  her  nativity. 

And  'midst  the  family's  recent  splendors 

The  younger  generations  spoke  up  hotly 

(With  less  discretion  than  they  used  outside) 

About  the  exactions  of  "Americans" 

As  to  the  attitude  of  newer  stocks; 

And  one  young  lad  flung  out, 

In  a  moment  of  high  exasperation, 

That  he  would  go  and  help  his  people's  cause. 

"Will  they  let  you  come  back?"  she  quavered. 

Laughter:  and  it  was  explained 

That  the  means  for  letting  people  in 

Were  in  good  order, 

But  that  the  means  for  keeping  people  out 

Were  good  as  missing. 

So,  quietude. 

The  world  was  kind  and  fair; 

Privileges  were  many;  obligations,  light. 

A  good  old  soul,  all  vague  and  isolate, 

Rocked  to  and  fro  in  her  protected  chamber; 

A  little  in  one  world, 

A  little  in  another, 


THE  ALIEN 

A  good  deal  out  of  both; 

But  tending, 

By  all  the  strength  of  lengthening  age 

And  early  ties, 

To  drift  backward  toward  that  world  - 

For  her  at  once  both  young  and  old  — 

Where  she  began. 

Peace;  let  her  fall  asleep. 

But  let  her  sons  keep  open  eyes  — 

And  turn  them  the  right  way. 


TOWARD  CHILDHOOD 

BACKWARD,  O  Time,  and  for  a  single  hour 
Make  a  small  child  of  him  who  stands  before  us 
At  the  advanced  age  of  seventy-five  — 
Leander  M.  Coggswell,  multimillionaire. 

In  these  days  gross  wealth  drugs  the  very  atmosphere, 
And  perhaps  too  little  of  it  has  got  into  the  present 

Lines. 

Shall  I  seem,  now,  to  over-do 
If  I  give  Mr.  C.  one  hundred  millions? 
Very  well;  they're  his. 

He  lives  to-day  in  semi-retirement, 

And  has  partly  forgotten  how  the  money  came; 

Completely  so,  if  asked  officially. 

Others  have  now  bent  their  backs  to  the  great  burden; 

He  no  longer  keeps  tab,  he  tells  us,  on  the  workings 

of  the  vast  machine. 

He  buys  now  and  then  a  picture,  a  coronet,  a  castle; 
He  smiles  impartially  on  ^the  great  and  on  the  small, 
On  the  heedless  and  on  the  inquisitive, 
Reads  detective  stories, 
And  plays  croquet. 

Now  let  us  make  him  a  little  younger. 
We  strip  him  first  of  his  bland  leisure 
[  124  ] 


TOWARD  CHILDHOOD 

And  of  his  more  puerile  interests. 

Five  years  ago  —  yes,  even  less  — 

He  was  aflame  to  found,  to  furnish,  to  fill 

His  great  museum, 

He,  the  modern  Medici — Cosimo  and  Lorenzo  in  one. 

Books,  manuscripts,  madonnas  choked  his  days; 

Art  and  learning  walked  captive  at  his  heels. 

But  Csesar  never  grew  so  great,  you  say, 

Upon  such  meat  as  that? 

Of  course  not.   There  was  a  previous  period: 

A  phantasmagoric  jumble  of  varied  interests 

Filled  the  public  air;  all  was  kept  aloft 

By  superhuman  skill,  and  all  was  juggled 

Just  a  bit  too  swiftly  for  the  questioning  eye  to 

follow  — 

Even  for  the  interested  orb 
Of  the  Uncle  of  us  all: 
Banks,   foundries,   railways,   tanks,   stock   market, 

state  legislatures,  what  you  will; 
Everything  brought  about  with  suave  and  Mephis 
tophelean  mien 
By  the  great  Thaumaturge, 
While  deft  assistants  at  the  lesser  tables 
Passed  on  the  properties  and  dressed  the  scene. 

Peeling  away  still  further  from  our  friend 
His  years,  his  dexterity,  his  general  grandeur, 
We  find  him  on  a  lower  stage  before  a  poorer  audience, 
Doing  less  skillfully  and  on  a  smaller  scale 
[125] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

The  tricks  that  made  the  man  —  himself. 
It  seems,  viewed  retrospectively,  a  mere  rehearsal 
Of  his  immense  Performance. 
Here,  industrious,  thrifty  and  alert 
(To  give  his  qualities  their  better  names), 
He  practiced, 

In  semi-privacy  and  with  no  possibility  of  praise, 
The  virtues  he  lauded,  later, 

In  pamphlets  and  addresses  aimed  at  the  nation's 
youth. 

Back  still  farther. 

No  company,  now;  no  firm: 

Just  a  lone  young  individual, 

Of  parentage  blent  and  non-distinguished,  let  us  say, 

With  a  young  helpmate  of  his  own  kind; 

Both  struggling  together  for  a  foothold, 

Both  putting  forth  their  strained  endeavors 

To  feed  and  clothe  a  little  flock, 

And  to  "get  on." 

Next  go  his  wife  and  children. 

We  have  left  now  only  a  young  clerk  or  handy-man, 

Of  lingo  semi-rustic,  semi-foreign,  semi-citified,  quite 

as  you  like; 

Moling  away  beneath  the  surface, 
Yet  coming  up,  at  intervals, 
To  see  the  Main  Chance  shining  in  the  sky; 
Holding  his  own,  and  more,  against  all  youthful 

rivals, 

f  126  1 


TOWARD  CHILDHOOD 

And  shaping  vigorously  the  grand  ideals 
Which,  later,  were  to  fire  his  heart  —  and  ours. 

Next  we  deprive  him  of  his  office-stool, 

Or  of  his  chance  to  labor  heartily  out  in  the  sheds. 

He's  but  a  boy  at  school; 

Quick,  quick,  with  slate  and  pencil; 

Sharp,  sharp,  among  the  playground's  crowd. 

Next  knee-trousers  go. 

We  have  a  child  of  four  in  laughable  habiliments 

Preserved  by  some  uncouth  disciple  of  Daguerre, 

And  later  shown,  in  half-tones, 

For  the  derisive  adoration  of  the  world; 

But  with  a  look,  sly  and  determined,  in  the  eyes, 

Which  promises  much. 

Now  but  an  infant-in-arms, 

Borne  in  long,  convoluted  skirts. 

"Oh,  what  a  forehead!"  cries  a  visiting  aunt, 

Pushing  the  frilled  cap  back; 

And,  kissing  such  brows,  mothers  have  often  said, 

with  awe: 
"He  may  be  president." 

Lastly,  a  new-born  babe 

Hugged  close  within  a  home 

On  some  elm-shaded  street, 

Or  in  some  slattern  village  farther  West, 

Or  in  some  stony  cabin  far  beyond  our  bounds. 

Can  we  go  on? 

[127] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Yes,  with  Wordsworth,  who  has  Intimations, 
And  who  may  have  bestowed  on  him 
Long  streamers  of  supernal  —  or  infernal  —  glory; 
With  Kant,  who  has  Innate  Ideas, 
And  who  may  well  have  packed  the  baby  full 
Of  pre-accumulated  notions  and  experiences; 
Or  with  Galton,  who  exploits  Heredity, 
And  who  may  have  presented  a  complete  outfit 
Of  traits  passed  on  from  linked  forefathers; 
Or  with  Taine,  who  comes  out  strongly  for  Environ 
ment, 

And  who  perhaps  decreed  that  he  should  be 
Quite  largely  what  Surroundings  made  him. 
Modern  opinion  and  current  fashion 
May  favor  this  last  theory  still. 

Thus  our  new-born  hero  came  at  once 

Within  a  range  of  influences  and  waiting  opportuni 
ties 

Which  caused  his  Life  to  follow 

As  easily  and  inevitably 

As  a  corollary  upon  a  theorem  proved  — 

As  naturally  as  some  prepotent  cloud, 

Careering  through  the  littered  heavens, 

Helps   weave   strange,   disconcerting   patterns   on 
earth's  fields. 

H  'm !   Are  we  not  all  clouds  together?  — 
Minor  cirri,  dumpy  cumuli, 
Multitudinous  shreds  of  vapor, 
[  128  ] 


TOWARD  CHILDHOOD 

Rosy  or  gray, 

That  float  or  drive  about  in  tiny  tatters; 
And  some  fixed  fault  within  the  national  sky 
Prevents  a  proper  taming  of  our  thunder-heads. 
We  wait  —  and  no  high  Cloud-Compeller  comes 
To  help  us  master  our  Preponderates. 


THE  OUTSIDER 

COULD  the  word  but  be  printed 

With  an  extra  vowel  and  an  accent  grave, 

Like  this: 

The  Outsidere, 

You  would  see  at  once 

That  a  woman  was  intended. 

However, 

The  shortcomings  of  the  English  tongue, 

Whether  we  speak  it  or  print  it, 

Are  serious  and  many  — 

One  can  but  do  one's  best. 

A  woman,  then; 

Which  woman  (one  of  two), 

You  shall  yourself  decide. 

Little  Magda  Vale  was  gay,  but  rather  casual 
One  might  e'en  say,  careless; 
For  few  of  her  associates  really  knew 
If  she  was  "Miss"  or  "Mrs."- 
Or,  indeed,  whether  the  name  she  used 
Was  actually  hers  at  all. 
These  associates 

Were  gentlemen,  and  other  ladies  like  herself. 
After  a  few  attempts 
In  the  direction  of  society, 
I  130  1 


THE  OUTSIDER 

She  wisely  limited  her  choice 
To  the  above. 

Magda  was  a  most  merry  little  party  — 

Diverting,  good-humored,  and  resourceful; 

Her  foyer  always  welcoming  and  warm. 

But  why  hint  at  a  hearthstone? 

Rather  should  you  see 

A  cheery  little  bonfire  in  the  dusk, 

By  the  gypsying  roadside, 

In  some  small  corner  of  the  wood  — 

A  bonfire  at  whose  kindly  blaze 

Men  who  had  yet  no  fireside  of  their  own, 

Or  who  were,  for  the  nonce, 

Far  afield  from  such  domestic  feature, 

Might  warm  their  hands  and  hearts, 

And  so  upon  their  way.   Enough. 

In  one  of  her  attempts  upon  society 

Magda  had  met  with  Catherine  Poole. 

Catherine  was  thirty-three  (some  years  the  elder), 

Fortune-favored,  single, 

Cold  and  worldly-wise. 

After  the  encounter,  the  frosted  interloper 

Withdrew  to  other  scenes,  — 

Far,  far;  the  chill  spread  wide. 

They  never  "met"  a  second  time. 

Catherine  lived  her  days 
In  a  big,  frigid,  pompous  house 
[  131] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Full  of  folk  too  old. 

The  presence  of  a  widowed  younger  sister 

And  one  plaintive  child 

Added  to  her  drear  environment 

Little  of  warmth  and  brightness. 

When  she  was  some  years  older, 

And  single  still, 

She  found  that  she  had  slowly  faded 

To  a  mere  stay-at-home: 

Directing  the  daily  routine 

For  scanty  thanks, 

And  passing  through  long  evenings,  somehow, 

With  ancient,  drowsy  aunts  and  uncles. 

It  was  dull,  dull,  dull. 

Young  men  never  came, 

Except  inferior  clerks 

With  papers  from  some  office. 

The  theaters  could  no  more  entertain; 

And  picture-galleries 

Had  long  since  been  a  mockery  — 

Where  was  life's  color? 

Charity,  organized  or  not, 

Was  colder  than  the  grave; 

Books  were  a  blank,  and  church  was  but  a  void. 

Who  shall  detail  the  frozen  hours 

That  icicled  her  rosary? 

Though  there  were  days  when  she  could  hug 

Her  sister's  child  — 

[  132  ] 


THE  OUTSIDER 

And  when,  indeed,  she  must  — 

There  were  more  when  she  could  not. 

There  were  other  days 

When  weddings  in  her  street 

Would  draw  her  curtains  close 

And  push  her  backward  to  the  sewing-room, 

Where  she  would  prick  her  fingers,  bite  her  lips, 

And  drop  self -pitying  tears  on  anything. 

After  some  years,  her  very  finger-tips 

Grew  cold. 

Within  the  pallid  marble  monument 

That  cooled  her  chamber 

No  glow,  no  warming  cheer, 

No  flicker,  even. 

And  then  she  saw  at  last 

(Tho*  she  had  seen  it  often) 

A  fading  heap  of  embers. 

"This  must  do,"  she  said. 

She  married;  a  "family  friend"  — 

Seasoned,  mature,  and  formal, 

Of  substance  and  position, 

Of  titles  and  degrees. 

She  was  a  wife  of  mark  — 

A  consort,  one  might  even  say. 

She  could  go  anywhere; 

And  now,  once  more,  she  did. 

The  last  week  of  the  honeymoon 
Took  wife  and  husband 

[  133  ] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

Out  to  a  night  of  dancing,  lights  and  song  — 

A  "show'*  in  a  great  house  that  welcomed  all. 

The  evening  ended 

With  shouts  of  numbers  and  with  slams  of  doors. 

Under  the  canopy  two  women,  among  many, 

Stood  in  the  flirts  of  snow: 

Our  Catherine,  regal,  scornful, 

Bored,  dissatisfied; 

And  at  her  elbow,  almost, 

A  merry  little  party  — 

Merry  still, 

Tho'  nearing  the  penumbra  of  the  days 

When  cold  correctness  and  exact  reserve 

Should  pay  for  earlier  ease  — 

A  merry  little  party,  as  I  say, 

Striking  in  garb 

And  specious  in  complexion; 

Working  vivacious,  sparkling  eyes, 

And  weaving  lips  in  patterns  made  to  suit 

The  satisfied  gallant  close  by  her  side  — 

Another  happy  soul,  and  not  too  old: 

Her  husband,  mayhap;  mayhap  not. 

At  any  rate,  the  joy  of  life  was  hers. 

Well,  what  are  rules,  if  one's  not  in  the  game? 

And  what  are  laws  to  one  without  the  pale? 

And  on  what  basis  shall  society 

Settle  with  debtor  and  delinquent 

Who  finds  the  half  more  to  her  than  the  whole? 

Time  must  aid. 

[134] 


THE  OUTSIDER 

Thus  "Magda"  brushed  our  Catherine, 

And  smiled  toward  her  attendant  as  she  viewed 

The  pottering  devotion, 

Gauche,  perfunctory, 

Of  the  numb-fingered  husband. 

So  these  two: 

One,  outside  of  life,  but  in  society; 

The  other, 

Outside  society,  but  at  the  heart  of  life  — 

Or  so  she  fancied. 

Well,  well;  what  do  you  make  of  this? 

"  What  do  you  make  of  it,  yourself?  " 

Perhaps  you  '11  ask. 

M oi,  I  have  reached  the  end, 

And  I  fall  silent. 


GLARE 

BY  the  time  our  young  man 

Had  reached  nineteen, 

Ambition  and  vanity 

Called  loudly  for  a  vent. 

If  he  was  to  live  — 

In  any  satisfying  sense  — 

He  must  climb, 

And  he  must  make  parade. 

Then,  too,  the  need  of  self-expression 

(Or,  at  least,  of  self-assertion) 

May  have  helped  torture  him. 

Anyhow,  he  must  escape; 

So,  to  be  brief, 

He  went  upon  the  stage. 

Soon  he  was  trailing 
Behind  a  manager. 

Managers,  rather  —  for  they  were  many. 
They  came  and  went, 
Now  one  and  now  another, 
Loose  irresponsibles : 
Most  of  them  half -optimist,  half -shark; 
And  with  such  escort 
He  wove  a  clanking  chain 
From  town  to  town, 
With  one  night  here,  the  next  one  there; 
f  136  1 


GLARE 

With  food  and  sleep  as  they  might  happen, 

And  proper  human  life 

Taking  its  poor  chances 

Between  the  chinks: 

Youth's  heyday  jaunt, 

A  lengthened  jest  — 

Sometimes  a  painful  one, 

Yet  still  a  merry. 

But  all  his  many  chiefs 

In  one  thing  were  alike: 

They  led  him  on  to  lavish  his  own  self  — 

His  young  enthusiasm, 

Hope  and  energy. 

He  was  joyously  profuse, 

Spending  himself  before  the  public  glare, 

While  older  heads, 

Illumed  with  lesser  light, 

Told  privately  their  takings  behind  the  scene. 

He  thought  himself  largely  repaid 

In  "opportunities" 

And  in  "experience." 

There  was  a  salary,  true; 

But  that  was  little,  even  the  leader  said, 

WThen  weighed  with  all  the  rest. 

After  some  years  of  this  — 
Years  which  he  might  have  turned 
To  better  (or  to  different)  account  — 
Youth  said  good-bye; 

[  137] 


LINES  LONG  AND   SHORT 

Energy  abated; 

Enthusiasm  waned; 

Hope,  crouching  low,  refused  to  budge. 

The  roseate  world  had  gradually  turned  gray. 

Mere  Mediocrity 

Laid  hands  on  him, 

Grinned  in  his  face, 

And  held  him  in  the  glare 

That  thousands  might  be  bored. 

Life  lost  its  savor, 

But  he  might  not  leave  the  table: 

The  dishes  rattled,  — 

He  must  seem  to  eat. 

He  was  almost  a  failure, 

And  he  was  doomed 

To  fail  in  —  public. 

Night  after  night 

Crowds  came  and  stared 

At  his  predicament. 

He  who  but  writes  a  book  may  fail  — 

And  no  one  knows; 

Whereas,  an  actor  .  .  .  ! 

At  forty-one  our  friend 

Saw  his  "career"  for  what  it  was; 

Saw  too  that  one  strong  wrench 

Must  soon  be  made 

If  he  were  ever 

To  lift  himself  from  that  o'er-lighted  rut 

Of  non-success. 

[  138  ] 


GLARE 

He  knew  the  life  —  that,  and  none  other; 

But  he  must  take  its  reverse  side. 

He  did  so. 

He,  young,  had  toiled  for  older  heads; 

Now,  middle-aged,  the  young  must  toil  for  him. 

Thus  he  became  a  manager  in  turn, 

And  took  his  toll. 

Come,  youth! 

Come  with  your  charm  and  freshness, 

Your  dynamic  hopes, 

Your  earnestness  and  generosity,  — 

Mixed  with  what  lower  matter  there  may  be,  — 

And  heave  yourself  into  the  roaring  furnace, 

Before  whose  maw  the  stoker  stands, 

Mired  in  a  pulp  of  shredded  contracts, 

Transmuting  such  as  you 

Into  fame  and  profit. 

Give  yourself  freely; 

Yield  what  can  never 

Be  rightly  recompensed. 

Yet,  if  you  shrivel, 

Bear  in  mind  that  he  must  shrivel  too. 

Begrimed,  with  sweaty  brow, 

And  bended  back  and  aching  arms, 

He  cries  out 

His  own  excessive  hardships. 

Yet  save  for  him,  remember, 

You  could  not  hope  to  flame, 

To  flare,  to  scintillate; 

[  139] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

You  would  be 

But  a  dull  clod  of  coal 

In  the  dim  mine  of  home. 

Be  grateful: 

Who,  in  this  bright  day, 

Would  stay  unlighted  and  unknown? 

Certes  not  you  and  I. 


THE  DAY  OF  DANGER 

WHAT  day  is  that?  you  ask; 

Does  not  every  day 

Bring  its  own  perils? 

And  yet,  once  past  the  rocks  and  rapids 

Of  childhood,  youth, 

And  of  adjustment  to  the  world  of  men, 

May  not  one  hope  to  pass  out  smoothly 

Into  the  wide,  quiet  waters 

Of  the  middle  years? 

Yes,  yes;  you  are  entitled  to  your  view  — 

And  I  to  mine. 

The  subject  of  these  lines  escaped 
The  various  dangers  that  attend 
One's  advent  in  this  world. 
That  day,  at  least, 
Of  all  days  the  most  fateful, 
Brought  him  no  patent  harm: 
So  pass  it  by. 

Succeeding  days  and  years 
Treated  him,  for  a  time, 
With  touch  no  less  forbearing. 
As  an  infant  in  arms 
He  ran  the  usual  risks  — 
And  outran  them. 

f  141  1 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

As  a  child  of  six  or  eight 

He  met  the  usual  hurdles  — 

And  took  them  handily. 

As  a  boy  of  fourteen 

He  worked  his  way  without  undue  mishap 

Through  the  high  seas  of  yeasty  adolescence. 

As  a  youth  of  eighteen, 

Neither  boy  nor  man, 

Harried  by  novel  passions  and  half -disclosed  desir 

He  struggled  to  adjust  himself  as  best  he  might 

To  the  Visible  Framework  — 

To  square  his  new  and  exigent  demands 

With  the  great  Code  half-seen  and  half-divined, 

And  made  no  serious  errors. 

When  he  was  twenty-two, 

Love  and  love's  concerns, 

As  linked  with  common  matrimonial  intent, 

Swerved  him  a  trifle  from  the  way; 

But  he  regained  his  equilibrium  soon 

And  entered  happily 

The  gates  of  wedded  life. 

At  twenty-six  he  felt  himself  well-rooted 

In  a  material  way:  established  in  his  life-work, 

And  past  all  risk  of  being  companied 

By  Rashness  and  by  Inexperience 

To  the  bankruptcy  court. 

And  at  thirty  all  was  well: 

A  wife,  a  home, 

An  interesting  little  family, 

And  the  respect  tfyat  goes 

[  142] 


THE  DAY  OF  DANGER 

With  a  fair  measure  of  practical  success, 

Cleverly  brought  about. 

Nothing  to  do,  apparently, 

But  to  go  on  as  he  had  gone  before : 

"Keeping  it  up";  dealing  more  cards  in  order  due 

From  the  same  flattering  pack. 

"No  danger  here;  none  yet,"  you  say. 

Nor  for  some  years  to  come. 

The  next  five  brought  him  little  change  — 

Too  little. 

Like  some  young  tree,  one  that  has  enjoyed 

A  signal  period  of  growth  and  efflorescence, 

And  then,  despite  fond  hopes  for  growth  continued, 

Stands  as  it  is,  was  our  poor  friend. 

And  when,  as  he  was  nearing  thirty-eight, 

His  firm  became  a  company, 

He  was  made,  not  president, 

But  merely  treasurer. 

Forty,  forty-two,  found  him  a  fixture  — 
Steady,  respected  and  dependable. 
Loved  by  his  wife  —  to  a  fair  degree,  admired. 
His  children  gave  him 
A  larger  measure  of  regard 
Than  is  the  wont  of  modern  youth. 
He  sat  on  platforms  at  trade  conventions; 
He  passed  the  plate  at  church. 
The  company  relied,  almost  unconsciously, 
On  his  stability  —  yet  never  could  quite  see 
[  143] 


LINES   LONG  AND   SHORT 

An  increased  salary.   In  short, 

Taken  for  granted;  put  in  a  place  and  kept  there. 

'T  is  the  harum-scarum  —  the  man  that  threatens 

To  fly  the  track,  yet  somehow  keeps  it  — 

Who  wins  appreciation; 

And  humdrum  merit  draws  no  comment 

Until  it  slips  and  fails. 

At  forty-five  our  friend  sat  down 
To  take  account  of  stock, 
And  asked  himself  that  fatal  question: 
"Does  it  pay?" 
Plodding  virtue, 
Calmly  accepted  on  every  side: 
Treasurer  and  wheelhorse  at  the  office; 
Wheelhorse  and  treasurer  in  the  home. 
Younger  men  were  passing  him 
And  bearing  off  life's  prizes; 
And  daily  use  had  made  home  faces  dull, 
Even  the  dearest. 

Youth,  youth  encompassed  him,  — 
Here,  as  a  rival, 
There,  almost  as  a  snare. 
If  youth,  in  one  form,  laid  a  tax, 
Might  he  not  ask  it,  in  another, 
To  bring  him  recompense? 
Not  for  much  longer 
Could  he  count  himself  as  young. 
Had  he  lived? 

Had  life  really  satisfied  him? 
[  144  ] 


THE  DAY  OF  DANGER 

Was  it,  as  lived  by  him  just  now, 
Worth  while? 

For  a  man  of  his  position  and  his  age, 

There  are  two  classic,  consecrated  sins : 

One  may  steal  away  from  home 

In  company  that 's  disallowed, 

Severing  long-clasped  links, 

And  setting  a  new  young  face 

In  place  of  one  long  known  and  loved; 

Or  one  may  steal,  in  bald  and  literal  sense, 

The  funds  committed  to  one's  care,  and  tangle  up 

The  fiscal  world  of  trust  and  credit. 

Men  there  have  been  who,  avid, 

Ambitious,  stung  to  impatience 

Past  all  sight  of  consequences, 

And  conscious  that  the  twilight  flush 

Could  not  much  longer  stay, 

Have  seized  on  both  these  sins  at  once 

And  lugged  them  off  together  — 

Breaking  at  the  quarter-post,  . 

And  breaking  completely. 

Thus  our  friend : 

His  day  of  danger  came  at  forty-five. 

Resulted  from  this  grind  of  daily  goodness, 
Projected  through  a  stale  and  sapless  future, 
An  upset  office  and  an  outraged  home: 
A  wife  shocked  and  affronted; 
Directors  —  nine  —  up  in  the  air; 
[  145  1 


LINES   LONG  AND   SHORT 

A  fortnight  of  general  gossip  and  dismay; 
Then  overtures, 

At  long  range  and  through  devious  channels, 
For  composition  and  forgiveness. 

His  wife,  benumbed, 

Had  not  the  heart  or  spirit  to  reproach. 

His  sons  impatiently,  yet  silently, 

Cursed  him  for  a  fool. 

His  daughters  found  it  hard, 

For  many  a  week,  to  look  him  in  the  face. 

His  fellow-officers  glozed  the  matter  broadly, 

Displaying  ostentatiously,  but  with  due  caution, 

Some  specious  proofs  of  confidence  restored. 

Acceptance  by  the  closer  and  the  greater 

Aided  the  lesser  and  the  more  removed 

In  their  prompt  search  for  ways  and  means 

By  which  they  might  adjust 

Their  principles  and  their  procedure 

To  things  as  they  had  come  to  be; 

And  all  was  well. 


Then,  for  twenty  years, 
A  man  subdued 

Walked  with  constraint  and  care 
Through  scenes  familiar; 
Never  quite  forgiven, 
Never  quite  trusted, 
Either  through  hours  of  work,  or  after. 
[  146  ] 


THE  DAY  OF  DANGER 

And  when  he  died 

Voices  were  found  to  say: 

"Well,  anyhow,  he  lived  — 

He  was  a  gay  dog  in  his  day." 

And  even  sooner  there  were  other  men 

Who,  when  ten  pickers  and  stealers 

Thrust  themselves  beyond  due  bounds, 

Drew  slanting  sanction 

(Or  at  least  looked 

For  understanding  and  indulgence) 

From  so  conspicuous  and  accredited  a  case. 

More  dangerous  than  birth, 

Or  croup  and  scarlatina, 

Or  pubescent  perturbations, 

Or  wild  first  love, 

Or  earliest  venturings  in  the  world  of  men, 

Are  the  middle  years  — 

For  one  who, 

Jog-trotting  faithfully  through  their  long  reaches, 

Sees  pleasures  and  rewards  fall  elsewhere, 

And  comes  to  feel 

That  soon  the  ardent  pulse  of  life 

Must  fall,  turn  cold,  expire. 


CHAMELEON 

I  PRESUME  you  have  sometime  bought 

A  package  of  blotting-paper, 

With  each  sheet  cut  to  one  particular  size; 

They  come  nine  inches  by  four, 

And  in  various  colors: 

White,  blue,  gray,  yellow,  pink  (or  red)  — 

In  fact,  almost  everything  but  black; 

And  black,  one  would  suppose,  might  easily  be  added. 

At  any  rate,  I  shall  add  it  here. 

Adelia  Page,  at  nineteen,  was  purest  white. 

She  lapped  up  impressions  of  whatever  sort 

And  registered  them  with  such  clear-cut  naivete" 

That  any  one  could  read  them  — 

Even  a  young  college  professor. 

Such  a  one  she  met  —  a  nice  youth  of  twenty-five. 

She  reproduced  on  her  immaculate  surface 

All  his  own  thoughts  and  views, 

And  showed  them  back  to  him  most  candidly: 

He  found  her  highly  sympathetic  and  intelligent. 

He  was  not  for  books  alone; 

He  danced  with  grace  and  chatted  pleasantly. 

He  was  ingenuous  —  as  white  as  she. 

They  found  each  other  charming,  and  they  paired. 

Alma  mater  would  always  care  for  him,  of  course; 
But  after  a  while  he  grew  a  little  dull. 
[  148] 


CHAMELEON 

There  were  disappointments,  and  there  was  a  cooling 

of  early  zeal: 
Under  the  white  sheet  at  the  top  was  one  of  bluish 

gray. 
The  young  wife  noted  the  difference  the  years  were 

bringing, 

Said  little,  but  grew  subdued  in  tone  herself, 
Took  her  color  from  him,  and  showed  him 
His  own  sober  face  in  hers. 

Yes,  alma  mater  was  prepared  to  care  for  him 

So  long  as  he  lived  and  walked  discreetly; 

But  could  not  guarantee  that  he  would  live. 

In  fact,  he  did  not.  He  died  at  thirty  and  left  behind 

A  grayness  greater  still. 

After  a  time  the  arts  began  to  console  her. 

She  entered  a  kind  of  decorous  Bohemia, 

And  here  she  met  a  painter. 

By  contrast  with  the  lost  one, 

He  was  dashing  and  worldly; 

He  had  swing,  momentum,  assurance. 

His  heart  was  on  his  sleeve  — 

He  spoke  at  their  third  meeting. 

Yes,  under  the  sheet  of  gray  was  one  of  reddish  pink  — 

Or  pinkish  red. 

They  married.    She  took  in  some  measure  her  hue 

from  him, 

Soaked  up  his  jargon,  his  insouciance, 
His  free  bohemian  ways. 

[  149] 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

The  gray  past  vanished  as  they  started  life 

Roseately 

In  a  studio  apartment; 

But  within  a  year  she  saw  his  color  more  clearly  — 

His  colors,  one  would  better  say : 

Red,  as  a  roisterer; 

As  a  provider,  merely  pink. 

The  charming  studio  could  not  be  maintained, 

Nor  could  she  maintain  her  earlier  ascendancy  over 

him 
Against  certain  gay  young  creatures  in  his  middle 

distance. 

Her  own  new  ways,  assumed  and  simulated 
In  rivalry  with  theirs, 
Deceived  no  one,  her  husband  least  of  all. 
And  so  they  wrote  together,  "We  must  part"  ; 
And    these    decisive    words    showed    with    perfect 

clearness 
Upon  that  scrap  of  indeterminate  red. 

She  passed  some  years  in  fingering  the  simple  tie 
That  held  the  sheets  together. 
After  due  deliberation  she  drew  another: 
She  wished  no  dull,  restricted  future,  like  her  first; 
No  stormy  and  precarious  life,  such  as  the  second. 
Presently  the  third  hope  appeared. 
He  shone  eloquently  from  a  large  platform 
Upon  a  responsive  audience : 

A  man  of  wide  experience,  and  of  connections  service 
able,  if  not  high. 

f  150  1 


CHAMELEON 

Some  called  him  statesman;  others,  politician. 

He  had  a  place  and  well  knew  how  to  hold  it  — 

Or  to  get  another  quite  as  good. 

He  had  an  income,  and  now  saw,  in  middle  life, 

The  way  to  make  it  greater. 

Within  three  months  she  had  drawn  another  sheet 

from  her  packet  — 
One  between  buff  and  yellow  — 
And  was  Mrs.  F.  W.  MacCartney, 
Wife  of  the  Honorable  Frank. 

She  now  had  a  position  and  the  means  to  maintain  it. 
She  had  stagnated  in  life's  pools; 
She  had  dashed  through  its  rapids; 
And  it  was  a  comfort,  at  thirty-six, 
To  be  borne  along  on  a  wTide,  equably-flowing  stream, 
To  some  definite  and  desirable  goal  — 
Washington,  D.C.,  it  appeared. 
Now  and  again  she  sat  on  platforms, 
And  she  promoted  their  common  interests  socially; 
But  she  declined  to  serve  as  a  member 
Of  the  domestic  committee  of  ways  and  means : 
She  took  unquestioningly  what  her  husband  gave. 
In  later  years,  during  a  hot  campaign, 
They  told  her  plainly,  as  a  voter  and  candidate, 
That  she  would  have  done  well  to  know 
A  little  better  whence  her  income  came  — 
A  reproach  which  might  be  brought 
(Once  criticism's  gates  are  opened  wide) 
Against  many  wives  as  worthy  quite  as  she; 
F  151  1 


LINES   LONG  AND   SHORT 

But  yellow,  or  even  buff,  is  a  hard  hue  to  keep  clean. 
With  the  years  her  clarion-colored  husband  grew 

dingy  —  honor  rang  less  clear; 
And  she  grew  careless  and  dingy  too. 
He  died  suddenly,  at  fifty, 

After  a  year  or  two  near  the  dome  of  the  Capitol, 
And  left  her  rather  poor. 
Despite  his  later  courses, 
Criticism  was  —  restrained. 
Yet,  had  she  been  less  dulled  by  grief, 
Or  less  devotedly  disposed 
To  hallow  and  idealize  his  memory, 
She  might  have  seen  the  heavens 
As  a  general  yellowish  grime. 

Very  soon  she  took  her  packet  again  in  hand 

And  turned  it  over. 

Upon  the  bottom  she  saw  an  oblong  bit  of  black. 

Long  enough  had  she  responded  and  reflected; 

And  she  had  registered  sensations  in  over-plenty. 

Black  gave  back  no  sign  —  black  was  the  only  wear. 

Through  influence 

She  became  an  undistinguished  figure  in  the  public 

service, 
And  wore  black  till  she  died. 


DELIQUESCENCE 

WE  loved  him; 

But  he  faded  gradually  from  our  sight. 

When  I  say,  "loved  him," 

It  just  means  — 

We  liked  him  pretty  well: 

Well  enough,  that  is,  to  hold  him  if  we  could. 

At  what  stage  of  his  departure 
Shall  I  try  to  snatch  him  back 
For  your  attention? 
Shall  it  be  the  moment 
When  he  first  betrayed 
His  weariness  and  discontent 
With  us,  our  mediocre  neighborhood, 
Our  unpretentious  ways? 
Or  when  professional  relations 
With  the  prominent  and  rich 
Had  shown  him  unmistakably 
A  door  to  finer  things  and  higher  life, 
Should  he  but  care  to  use  it? 
Or  shall  it  be  at  that  last  hour 
When  "society," 
In  tardy  consciousness 
Of  pleasant  manners  and  of  perfect  taste, 
Enclasped  him,  whisked  him  through  its  portals, 
And  shut  them  tight  and  left  us  sad  outside? 
[  153  ] 


LINES   LONG  AND   SHORT 

When  all  this  happened, 

He  was  well  past  thirty-four. 

The  wonder  only  is 

It  had  not  happened  sooner. 

But  Pomp  and  Show 

Have  not  the  clearest  eye 

For  taste  and  merit. 

However,  after  some  delay, 

It  was  agreed  that  no  one 

Could  better  place  a  porch, 

Perform  a  fox-trot, 

Do  exedras  in  gardens, 

Drape  galleries  with  tapestries, 

Pass  a  cup  of  tea, 

Or  hang  long  rows  of  lusters 

From  ballroom  ceilings. 

And  so  he  left  our  simple  street: 

He  disappeared,  dissolved,  melted  away, 

To  re-crystallize 

In  a  more  glittering  environment; 

And  none  of  us  was  urged 

To  follow  him 

To  his  new  sphere. 

Of  all  our  little  group 
None  felt  the  deprivation 
More  than  his  Auntie  Peck 
(She  was  not  his  auntie;  she  was  everybody's) 
And  "Cousin"  Clementine. 
For  in  his  youth  he  'd  been  a  member 
[  154  1 


DELIQUESCENCE 

Of  Auntie's  Bible-class; 

And  in  the  earlier  days 

Of  his  professional  struggles 

Clementine  had  often  asked  him 

On  Sunday  nights  to  tea, 

And  they  had  gone  together 

To  frugal  parties,  simple  sociables; 

And  Clementine  and  Auntie  both 

Had  worked  in  unison 

To  make  the  city 

Less  strange  and  less  inhospitable 

To  a  nice  but  friendless  fellow. 

"He's  gone!"  said  Auntie  Peck  in  tears. 

And  they  were  left,  two  empty  shells, 

Upon  an  ebb-bared  shore. 

Months  passed.   He  never  came 
To  "take  them  up." 

They  lay  neglected,  under  heaven's  great  dome, 
And  read,  at  short  and  shortening  intervals, 
Of  the  social  doings  and  advances 
Of  this  most  popular  bachelor. 
The  flowery  path  he  trod 
Led  him  to  dinners,  dances,  opera  boxes; 
And  now  and  then  't  was  noted  he  repaid 
This  comprehensive  hospitality 
By  comprehensive  entertainments  of  his  own, 
At  some  high,  well-regarded  hostelry. 
"I  hope  he's  happy,"  said  Auntie  Peck, 
Not  without  bitterness, 
f  155  1 


LINES  LONG  AND  SHORT 

And  presently  her  bitterness  increased. 

Loyalty,  or  policy,  or  some  cause  obscure, 

Soon  brought  the  young  Olympian 

To  a  wedding 

Upon  the  edge  of  his  old  quarter; 

And  Auntie  Peck  and  Clementine, 

As  family  friends  of  early  date, 

Were  summoned  too. 

They  saw  him  plainly  'cross  the  ballroom's  width; 

And  he  —  perhaps  —  saw  them. 

But,  if  so,  't  was  in  some  dream, 

In  some  fantastic  and  improbable  mirage. 

They  looked  so  vague  he  scarce  could  chance  a  bow. 

"Gone,  quite!"  sighed  Clementine. 

For  them  his  deliquescence  was  complete. 

How  to  solidify  him  once  again 

For  a  deserved  revenge? 

"Let  all  these  dinner-parties  and  receptions," 

Said  Auntie  Peck,  one  evening,  in  their  parlor, 

"Lead  him  to  the  point 

To  which  they  commonly   conduct  a  fine  young 

man  — 
To  marriage." 

"Yes,"  said  Clementine;  "and  let  him  marry 
Some  haughty  girl,  within  that  very  set, 
Who  '11  show  him  in  short  order 
That  he  is,  after  all,  a  mere  outsider, 
And  who  will  lead  him  such  a  life  — " 
"Yes,"  said  Auntie  Peck;  "and  let  her  ask 
[  156  1 


DELIQUESCENCE 

For  palaces,  and  pleasures,  and  esplanades, 

And  tapestries,  and  chandeliers,  and  closets,  closets, 

closets, 

In  measure  twenty  times  beyond  his  power  to  give; 
And  let  him  soon  grow  gray  with  worry  — 
Before  he 's  fifty,  anyhow  — 
"Yes,5*  said  Clementine;  "and  let  her  love  another 

man, 

Younger  and  richer  and  handsomer  — " 
"Yes,"  said  Auntie  Peck;  "and  let  him  find  it  out, 
And  let  them  brave  and  taunt  him, 
And  let  him  take  a  pistol  from  a  drawer, 
And  hold  it  to  his  head  ..." 

The  doorbell  buzzed. 

In  the  bright  opening 

Their  victim  stood  and  smiled. 

"My  dear,  dear  boy!"  sobbed  Auntie  Peck; 

"How  glad  we  are  to  see  you!" 

She  kissed  him  — 

And  robbed  him  of  his  future. 


THE  END 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .    A 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


'  \-  Ci 

:     " 

APR     5  1967 

^fcSM6          u^sggss^. 

385002 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


